For FY 2026, USCIS announced on its website that it had received H-1B cap registrations for about 336,153 individual beneficiaries. To reach the 85,000 yearly H-1B quota, the agency chose 118,660 of these beneficiaries, or around 35.3% of those who were enrolled. This selection rate is greater than in previous cap years; in FY 2025, around 29% of unique beneficiaries were chosen, and in FY 2024, 24.8% of eligible registrations were chosen.
In comparison to the 423,028 unique beneficiaries submitted in the FY 2025 quota, the number of eligible unique beneficiaries submitted in the FY 2026 cap (336,153) was substantially smaller. Furthermore, there were far fewer registrations (343,981) this season than there were in FY 2025 (470,342). Additionally, according to USCIS, there were roughly 57,600 unique employers filing cap registrations for FY 2026, which is about the same amount as there were for FY 2025 (about 52,700 unique companies).
USCIS has been using a beneficiary-centric cap selection process for the second year in a row. This means that the lottery is chosen based on the individual foreign national beneficiary rather than the entire pool of eligible registrations. In an attempt to address fraud and abuse in the H-1B registration system, a beneficiary-centric system was implemented; USCIS reports that registration data from FY 2025 and FY 2026 shows a decrease in system abuse. The beneficiary-centric selection process and other H-1B cap enforcement actions, including investigations, petition denials and revocations, and prosecution referrals, are partially responsible for the decrease, according to the government.
In order to account for instances for which no petition is ultimately filed as well as cases that are denied, rejected, withdrawn, or revoked, USCIS typically chooses more registrations than are required to achieve the yearly 85,000 H-1B quota. However, the agency may choose to hold a second lottery among submitted FY 2026 registrations for unique beneficiaries if the first selection does not result in enough petitions filed for unique beneficiaries to reach the annual quota.
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Sincerely,
Luke Bowman
The Law offices of Luke Bowman