USCIS has announced that the annual limit for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 H-1B cap employment has been met and the lottery selection process has been completed. USCIS intends to notify employers of the selection results by March 31, but some registrants are already able to view the status of their submissions in their registration accounts.
During the initial registration period, employers submitted more than enough registrations to meet the quota of 65,000 standard H-1B cap numbers and the cap exemption of 20,000 for holders of U.S. advanced degrees. The precise number of cap filings has not yet been disclosed.
USCIS should send an email to the employer’s authorized signatory and immigration counsel. The email will notify the recipient that there has been a change in the status of a cap registration.
For each registered beneficiary, the USCIS online system will reflect one of the following statuses.
- Selected: The employer may file a FY 2021 H-1B cap petition for the beneficiary
- Submitted: The beneficiary was not chosen in the initial lottery selection, but the beneficiary will remain in consideration for selection until the end of the fiscal year. The employer may not file an FY 2021 cap petition for the beneficiary unless notified otherwise by USCIS.
- Denied: A duplicate registration was submitted by the employer for the same beneficiary, or the payment method was declined and not reconciled. If a registration was denied as a duplicate, all the employer’s registrations and beneficiaries will be denied.
USCIS is set to begin to accept H-1B cap petitions on behalf of lottery selectees on April 1, 2020. The petition filing period will end no earlier than 90 days thereafter. All FY 2021 H-1B cap petitions must be submitted during this period.
Though in most cases a cap petition can be filed at any point during the filing period, some cases may need to be filed at specific times. If the beneficiary is an F-1 student working on optional practical training (OPT) who will need cap-gap protection, the petition must be filed before his or her OPT employment authorization document expires.
We will continue to monitor the situation.