USCIS Reaches H-1B Cap for Fiscal Year 2019

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On April 6, 2018, USCIS announced it had reached the 65,000 H-1B visa cap and the 20,000 visa U.S. advanced degree exemption cap (the “Master’s cap”) for fiscal year 2019.

USCIS has not specified yet how many H-1B cap-subject petitions it received this year. According to reports, the cap has been reached every year since 2014 and (except for 2018) the number of petitions received has steadily increased:

·         2014:   124,000

·         2015:   172,500

·         2016:   233,000

·         2017:   236,000

·         2018:   199,000

Once the lottery is conducted, USCIS will reject and return filing fees for the cases that were not selected.

As a reminder, Premium Processing service for all cap-subject H-1B cases has been suspended temporarily. USCIS will continue to accept, however, premium processing requests for the following H-1B petitions:

  • Extensions

  • Changes in terms of employment

  • Change of employer

  • Concurrent employment

We will continue to monitor the H-1B visa lottery for FY 2019 and post updates regularly.  Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

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