USCIS Releases FY2024 CAP Registration Statistics
On Friday, April 28, the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that 780,884 H-1B registrations were submitted in the FY2024 annual H-1B cap lottery. This is by far the highest number of H-1B cap registrations submitted since the program began, and accounts for the very low acceptance rates faced by employers this year – overall, the rate was approximately 15%.
Background to the H-1B Cap Lottery
The “H-1B cap” is the annual numerical limitation on new H-1Bs imposed by the Immigration Law. A total of 85,000 new H-1Bs are allocated each year, and 20,000 of these are reserved for persons who have graduated from U.S. universities with advanced degrees (i.e. the "Master's cap"). Where there are more H-1B registrations than available numbers, as has been the case for the last several years, the USCIS conducts a lottery to determine which of the registrations will be eligible for an H-1B petition filing. The USCIS announced results of the initial lottery draw for FY2024 on March 27, 2023.
Reasons for the Unprecedented H-1B Cap Submission Rate
The record number of cap H-1B registrations for FY2024 is almost 62% higher than FY2023 submissions, and more than two and a half times higher than submissions for FY2022, and FY2021. While some of this growth is organic, reflecting increased demand, USCIS statistics reflect an increase of over 80% in registrations for beneficiaries with registrations filed by multiple employers, compared to last year. The USCIS regulations prohibit multiple registrations submitted for the same person at the same company, but do not prohibit registrations submitted for the same person by different companies, so long as there is a valid job offer at each company. Undoubtedly, there are some beneficiaries who seek offers from multiple employers to increase their odds in the annual lottery.
A report in the Wall Street Journal states that a number of small tech and information technology companies may have also colluded in submitting multiple registrations in order to increase odds of selection in the lottery. The USCIS alludes to this possibility as well. The agency states in its press release from last Friday that it is investigating companies that may have engaged in such activities, and duplicate registrants may be nullified if fraud is found. The USCIS also suggests that a finding of fraud under these circumstances may result in further criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.
Likelihood of Additional Lottery Draws for FY2024
Every year, the USCIS picks more registrations than available H-1B numbers in the initial lottery run in March, anticipating that some of the petitions may be denied, and some employers with selected registrations may decide not to follow through with the petition filing. The latter possibility is more likely for beneficiaries with multiple registrations for different employers, as the beneficiary would only need one selected registration to file an H-1B petition.
For FY2023, the USCIS over-picked about 40,000 H-1B cap registrations. For FY2024, the agency over-picked far less, only about 25,000.
If, as the USCIS finds fraud with some of the cap registrations submitted in March, these submissions would also be returned to the available pool.
Given the larger number of beneficiaries with multiple registrations for FY2024, the lower number of registrations over-picked in the initial lottery compared to last year, as well as the possibility that the USCIS may nullify a substantial number of registration selections due to fraud, we believe that it is fairly likely at this point that far fewer H-1B cap petitions will be submitted than the number of registrations selected in March. If this happens, the USCIS will conduct a second lottery draw, probably around August or September of this year, and possibly even a third draw, towards the end of the year. Note that these draws would be limited to the H-1B registrations that were already submitted in March.
We will provide more information as it becomes available.