USCIS selects more than 114,000 in initial H-1B cap selection for FY 2025

New registration process results in number of eligible registrations dropping from 758,994 in FY 2024 to 470,342 in FY 2025.

By AB Wire

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Tuesday that it has selected a total of 114,017 beneficiaries in the initial selection for the 2025 fiscal year H-1B cap.

Overall, there was a notable decrease in the total number of registrations submitted compared to FY 2024, the agency said in a press release.

The number of eligible registrations dropped significantly from 758,994 in FY 2024 to 470,342 in FY 2025 — a reduction of 38.6 percent.

The 470,342 registrations were for approximately 442,000 unique beneficiaries, indicating that more than one employer filed registrations for some of the same beneficiaries, which is allowed under the new process.

READ: New beneficiary-centric approach likely to cut number of H-1B registrations by half (March 5, 2024)

The drop in registration was due to a new process implemented by USCIS aimed at reducing fraud and providing equal opportunity to beneficiaries.

Under the previous process, H-1B selection (commonly referred to as the “lottery”) was conducted from all registrations submitted by employers, giving beneficiaries for whom multiple employers submitted registrations a higher chance of selection.

This year, USCIS selected registrations by unique beneficiary rather than employer registrations. Employers had to register each beneficiary using their valid passport or travel document number. Even if multiple employers submitted registrations for the same beneficiary, the beneficiary was only included in the “lottery” once using their passport or travel document number, ensuring all beneficiaries have an equal chance in the selection process.

“The decrease in registrations shows the efforts by USCIS to streamline the process has been successful to a considerable extent,” said Johnson Myalil, an immigration attorney at High-Tech Immigration Law Group in Reston, Virginia. “I hope the USCIS will ensure that next year, the system will work flawlessly and without any glitches.”

Myalil was referring to technical glitches encountered by attorneys and petitioners, which forced USCIS to extend the initial registration period for three days.

As the American Bazaar reported, there were complaints regarding missing signatures on the PDF version of Form G-28, a document required for H-1B cap registrations when submitted by attorneys.

READ: Glitch in H-1B registration system causes concern among immigration attorneys (March 8, 2024)

In addition to that, there were other glitches, such as the inability to pay the registration fee, frequent freezing of the system, and various types of error messages.

“The initial data for the registration period for the FY 2025 H-1B cap indicates that there were far fewer attempts to gain an unfair advantage than in prior years, owing in large measure to our implementation of the beneficiary-centric selection process under the final rule on Improving the H-1B Registration Selection Process and Program Integrity,” USCIS news release said.

The agency noted that, based on evidence from the FY 2023 and FY 2024 H-1B cap seasons, it has “undertaken thorough fraud investigations, denied and revoked petitions accordingly, and continues to make law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution.”

The USCIS is also reviewing the FY 2025 data for any attempts to gain an unfair advantage through the beneficiary-centric process, and, accordingly, deny or revoke any petitions and make law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution as necessary.