2024 H-1B registration opens on March 1

USCIS will conduct a lottery if it receives enough registrations to meet annual cap of 65,000 by March 17 

The initial registration for the fiscal year 2024 H-1B work visas coveted by Indian tech professionals will be open from March 1 to March 17, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Friday.

During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives will be able to complete and submit their registrations using USCIS’ online H-1B registration system.

Read: US trying to cut visa wait times for Indians (January 24, 2023)

USCIS will assign a confirmation number to each registration solely to track registrations. This number cannot be used to track one’s case status in Case Status Online.

In recent years, Indians have been bagging more than 70% of 85,000 H-1B visas issued each fiscal year for high skilled foreign workers, including 20,000 for those holding a master’s degree or higher from a US institution of higher education.

Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives are required to use a myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay a $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.

US employers and US agents submitting their own registrations are required to use a “registrant” account. Registrants will be able to create new accounts beginning at noon Eastern on Feb 21.

Representatives may add clients to their accounts at any time, but both representatives and registrants must wait until March 1 to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $10 fee, USCIS said.

Read: 7 things to know before visiting the US in 2023 (January 21, 2023)

Prospective petitioners or their representatives will be able to submit registrations for multiple beneficiaries in a single online session. Through the account, they will be able to prepare, edit, and store draft registrations prior to final payment and submission of each registration.

If USCIS receives enough registrations by March 17, it will randomly select registrations and send selection notifications via users’ myUSCIS online accounts.

If it does not receive enough registrations, all registrations that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. USCIS says it intends to notify account holders by March 31.

The Treasury Department has approved a temporary increase in the daily credit card transaction limit from $24,999.99 to $39,999.99 per day for the FY 2024 H-1B cap season, USCIS said.

Read: FY 2024 H-1B Cap Initial Registration Period Opens on March 1 (January 27, 2023)

This temporary increase is in response to the volume of previous H-1B registrations that exceeded the daily credit card limit. Additional information will be provided before the start of the initial H-1B registration period, the immigration agency said.

An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary who is eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for the beneficiary named in the H-1B petition was selected in the H-1B registration process, USCIS said.