H-1B visa registration for FY 2025 open till March 22 with revamped online process. All FAQs answered
H-1B cap season for fiscal year 2025 is in full swing in the United States, with registrations now open and scheduled to close on March 22. However, the application procedure has undergone significant changes, making it crucial for employers and applicants to understand the new process thoroughly. The H-1B programme allows US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in highly specialised technical occupations, including architecture, engineering, social sciences, medicine, education, mathematics, law, accounting, business specialities, arts, and others.
The annual cap for new H-1B visas is 65,000 for each fiscal year. The Joe Biden administration has introduced a modernised H-1B lottery registration system, shifting to a more beneficiary-centric approach instead of random selection. This new process limits each employee to being chosen only once in each lottery.
Registrants are now required to provide valid passport and travel document information, as per PTI. To initiate the H-1B petitioning process, employers must create an online US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) account at my.uscis.gov. Existing registrant accounts from previous seasons will be migrated to new organisation accounts, a process that may take several hours or even more than a day for accounts with large volumes of cases.
Accredited representatives with a Legal Representative account will also undergo a similar migration process when they log into their USCIS accounts. It is crucial to choose the correct account type—Organisation or Legal Representative—during the account creation process, as changing the account type later will not be possible. In such cases, a new USCIS online account will need to be created using a different email
. Read more on livemint.com
