H-1B visa: USCIS to conduct 2nd-round lottery this year too. Here’s what’s exempt, what’s not

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a second lottery for the fiscal year (FY) 2025 H-1B regular cap category. The initial selection process was conducted in March. USCIS, however, stated that this additional lottery is necessary to ensure that the fiscal year 2025 regular cap allocation is met by selecting more unique beneficiaries.

Last month, USCIS, in a statement, said, “Soon, we will select additional registrations for unique beneficiaries from previously submitted electronic registrations using a random selection process, and we will notify prospective petitioners with selected registrations from this second round of selection that they are eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for the beneficiary named in the applicable selected registration.”

In March this year, USCIS conducted an initial random selection for FY 2025 H-1B cap registrations, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption. However, the second lottery selection will not include beneficiaries under the master’s cap.

USCIS explains, “We will not be conducting a second selection for the advanced degree exemption (the master’s cap), as enough master’s cap registrations were already selected and sufficient petitions were received based on those registrations as projected to meet the FY 2025 masters cap numerical allocation.”

It also added that the second round of selection for the regular cap will consist of previously submitted registrations that indicated eligibility for the master’s cap along with those that indicated only eligibility for the regular cap.

Those with selected registrations will receive a selection notice on their USCIS online accounts, the USCIS informed. 

Last year, the agency registered a notable increase of 61 per cent in H-1B applications, with a total of 780,884 submissions for FY 2024. The H-1B visa permits employers in the US to bring in internationally qualified workers if they can’t find employees in the US, in order to fill the labour shortage gaps.