United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced the registration period for the fiscal year 2023 H-1B cap will be noon Eastern Time on March 1, 2022 through to noon Eastern Time on March 8, 2022. Prospective H-1B cap petitioners or their representatives will be able to use existing myUSCIS accounts for the 2023 registration and new registrants will be able to create their accounts from noon Eastern Time February 21, 2022, in preparation for candidate information to be submitted from March 1, 2022.
The H-1B cap selection process sets out an annual quota limited to 85,000 cases, 20,000 of which are open to those who have earned an advance degree from a US faculty and 65,000 open to other qualified candidates. When USCIS receives more registrations for the H-1B permits than the annual quota, a random lottery is run on the pool of registrations to allocate the limited places.
Anticipating that USCIS will receive more than the 85,000 registrations by March 18, 2022, they will run a lottery notifying the successful registrants by March 31, 2022. USCIS will then accept cap petitions for the successful beneficiaries from April 1. 2022, with the filing period closing no earlier than June 30, 2022.
Once the lottery has been completed, USICS will notify the successful registrants who must at that point submit the full H-1B petition for the corresponding applicant. The petition may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration was made for the beneficiary named and selected in the H-1B lottery process.
In order to file a new H-1B case, employers must first be registered with the USCIS online H-1B system. They can then complete registrations by submitting details for each candidate they intend to sponsor for a new H-1B.
Employers who wish to petition for H-1B cases should ensure they are registered with the H-1B online system and have a myUSCIS account for each entity that will sponsor beneficiaries for the 2023 cap period. They will also need to have identified their cap needs in advance of the opening of the registration period on March 1, 2022. Employers or their representatives will have from that date until March 18, 2022 to draft, sign and submit their cap registrations. Personal details of the beneficiary will be required including name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport details and whether they are eligible for the advanced degree cap.
For further information on immigration in the US, please contact the Sterling Lexicon immigration team.
US
