Fiscal Year 2023 (FY 2023) H-1B cap will open the electronic registration at noon Eastern on March 1, 2022 and run through noon Eastern on March 18, 2022.

U.S. employers file H-1b petitions for foreign nationals who will be employed temporarily in professional fields – referred to as “specialty occupations” or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. Each year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) selects 65,000 H-1B registrations for foreign nationals with at least a bachelor’s degree, and an additional 20,000 petitions for foreign nationals with an advanced degree from a U.S. institution. A computer-generated random selection process (commonly known as the "lottery") is used to select a sufficient number of registrations to meet the 65,000 “regular cap.” The remaining registrations that are eligible for the H-1B advanced degree exemption and that were not selected under the regular cap are then placed into a separate lottery for random selection to meet the 20,000 “master’s cap.”

A petitioner is only eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition if they electronically register the beneficiary during the registration period and USCIS selects the registration submitted for the beneficiary through the random selection process. Once the beneficiary’s registration is selected in the lottery, the petitioner will need to file a complete petition with supporting documentation within 90 days to establish the beneficiary’s eligibility for a FY 2023 H-1B ( starting October 1, 2022). Below is an estimated timeline with the steps for us to prepare and submit the H-1B registrations and petitions on your behalf.

FY2023 Cap Subject H-1B Registration Timeline:

 February 24, 2022 - March 1, 2022: prospective employers may begin to create a myUSCIS registrant account (N/A if you already have an H-1B registrant account from last year’s electronic registration).

• We will be sending a separate email with detailed instructions for setting up and linking your registrant account with our representative account, so please let us know if you plan to register any beneficiaries this year and you did not create a registrant account last year.

March 1, 2022: H-1B registration period opens

• During this timeframe, our office will register each prospective H-1B employee you wish to sponsor.

March 18, 2022: H-1B registration period closes

March 31, 2022: date by which USCIS intends to notify registrants selected in the lottery

April 1, 2022: earliest date that H-1B cap-subject petitions for employment starting October 1, 2022 may be filed

June 30, 2022: filing deadline for H-1B cap-subject petitions that were selected in the initial lottery.

Last year, USCIS did not receive enough H-1B cap-subject petitions that were selected in the initial lottery to meet the annual cap. Therefore, in August 2021, USCIS selected additional registrations to submit petitions for the FY 2022 H-1B cap. Employers with newly selected registration notices that said “August 2021 Selection of Reserve Registration” were able to file an H-1B petition for the beneficiary named in the selected registration between August 2021 and November 2021. While there is no guarantee, we believe that it is likely that we will see the same happen this year.

Please let us know as soon as possible if you have any employees who may require H-1B sponsorship, including employees who were not selected in last year’s lottery. Given the long delay between filing dates, anyone who is currently working pursuant to the Optional Practical Training (OPT) portion of their F-1 status should be considered for H-1B registration.

Please feel free to contact Shuyuan Tian, Esq. at stian@lgtlegal.com  or 607-584-5792, if you need to initiate the H-1b process or if you have any questions. Thank you.