Legal Updates

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it will soon conduct a second H-1B lottery for Fiscal Year 2024 cap-subject H-1B applicants. The lottery will draw from the remaining pool of applicants who submitted an online H-1B registration in March 2023 but were not selected in the first round.

In March 2023, USCIS conducted an initial random selection on properly submitted electronic registrations for the fiscal year (FY) 2024 H-1B cap, including beneficiaries eligible for the advanced degree exemption. Only those petitioners with selected registrations for FY 2024 are eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions. The initial filing period for those with selected registrations for FY 2024 was from April 1, 2023, through June 30, 2023.

USCIS recently determined they would need to select additional registrations to reach the FY 2024 numerical allocations. USCIS has advised that it will select additional registrations from previously submitted electronic registrations using a random selection process. USCIS will announce once they have completed this second selection process and will provide additional notification to all prospective petitioners with selected registrations from this round of selection that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration.

Those with selected registrations will have their myUSCIS accounts updated to include a selection notice, which includes details of when and where to file.

USCIS has not yet announced when the new lottery will take place or how many additional selections will be made. USCIS will make a public announcement once the second lottery is complete, and our office will advise employers if we receive notification of additional selections to confirm they wish to proceed with the H petition selection process.