The registration process for H-1B visa in the US will begin from 7th March this year and will continue till 24th March. This time, the registration fee for each applicant has been increased from 10 to 125 dollars. This change has been made by the Biden administration to ensure transparency and integrity of the visa system.
The H-1B is an employer-sponsored non-immigrant classification which enables a person who is not a citizen or permanent resident of the US to work in a specialty occupation for up to six years with very limited exceptions. It is a foreign worker visa that allows the US employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations.
The minimum educational level required for H-1B status is a bachelor's degree in the field of the proposed employment. The non-immigrant employee must have the required degree or its equivalent in order to receive the H-1B approval.
Under this new change, a beneficiary-centric registration and selection process has been adopted for H-1B visas. Now each applicant will be entered into the lottery selection process only once, no matter how many entries are sent for the applicant. The passport will play the role of a unique identifier in this registration, which will prevent abuse and fraud in the H-1B lottery.
The fee hike and new process are aimed at curbing agencies that attempt to increase the chances of winning the lottery by making multiple registrations for the same candidate.
A total of 4, 70, 342 eligible registrations were received for H-1B visas for fiscal year 2025, a decline of 38.6% over the previous year. However, this number is still far higher than the annual quota. Only 85,000 H-1B visas are issued each year, of which 20,000 are reserved for the masters cap.
USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) is likely to receive more number of registrations than its quota this year too.