By Adam J. Kneeland 

With USCIS's recent confirmation of this year's registration schedule, we have officially entered the FY 2025 H-1B cap season. This year brings some significant changes that will affect how USCIS selects candidates. 

New Changes to Registration 

Starting this year, USCIS will select registrations solely by name, meaning that the cap lottery is now one entry per person. Multiple cap entries no longer increase a candidate's chances of selection.

Note that multiple companies can still submit for the same candidate. In this case, if a candidate's name is selected, any company that submitted a registration for that beneficiary can submit an H-1B petition on their behalf. Only companies who registered a selected candidate can submit an initial H-1B petition for them after selection ends. Once in approved H-1B status, H-1B workers can still transfer employment without going through the lottery again as normal.

In theory, this should, overall, increase any given candidate's chance for selection, especially candidates registered by relatively small companies. If USCIS is to be believed (and our office's anecdotal experience is worth anything), last year saw the lowest rate of selection for candidates registered only once or twice. The one-entry-per-name system should prevent larger companies from making agreements with related entities, vendors, and end-clients to enter potential employees' names several times each in order to guarantee a higher rate of selection for those larger companies.

USCIS is also rolling out organizational accounts this year, allowing multiple users to access the same registrant account. Since first implementing digital registration USCIS has been quite strict that registrants must have their own account accessible to no one but the account creator. Going forward, accounts can be configured so that multiple members will have access to registrations, though a specific signatory must be designated. Account creation for cap registrants is expected to open by the end of February. 

FY2025 Cap Schedule

USCIS also confirmed this year's cap schedule. 

• March 6, 2024 - USCIS registration system opens for submissions @ noon EST
• March 10, 2024 – Deadline for payment to our office for any cap registrations
• March 22, 2024 – Registration closes @ noon EST
• March 31, 2024 – deadline for USCIS selection announcements  
   

Registration and petition fees

By the time petitions can be submitted for selected candidates starting in April 2024, USCIS will have implemented new filing fees that will affect H-1B petitions. Premium processing time will also shift from 15 calendar days to 15 business days. A summary of anticipated fees is below: