iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap will open at noon Eastern on March 7 and run through noon Eastern on March 24, 2025. During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives must use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated registration fee for each beneficiary.
Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives have been instructed to use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $215 H-1B registration fee for each registration submitted on behalf of each beneficiary.
“H-1B petitioning employers who do not have a USCIS online account will need to create an organizational account. H-1B petitioning employers who had an H-1B registrant account for the FY 2021 – FY 2024 H-1B registration seasons, but did not use the account for FY 2025, the existing account will be converted to an organizational account after the next log-in. First-time registrants can create an account at any time. Additional information and resources will be available on the organizational accounts, including a link to step-by-step videos, on the Organizational Accounts Frequently Asked Questions page. These FAQs will be updated with FY 2026 information before the start of the initial registration period,” USCIS said in a release.
“Representatives may add clients to their accounts at any time, but representatives and registrants must wait until March 7 to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $215 fee. Selections take place after the initial registration period closes, so there is no requirement to register on the day the initial registration period opens.”
The FY 2026 H-1B cap will use the beneficiary-centric selection process launched in FY 2025. Under the beneficiary-centric process, registrations are selected by unique beneficiaries rather than by registration. “If we receive registrations for enough unique beneficiaries by March 24, we will randomly select unique beneficiaries and send selection notifications via users’ USCIS online accounts. If we do not receive registrations for enough unique beneficiaries, all registrations for unique beneficiaries that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. We intend to notify by March 31 prospective petitioners and representatives whose accounts have at least one registration selected,” USCIS added.
The U.S. Department of Treasury has approved a temporary increase in the daily credit card transaction limit from $24,999.99 to $99,999.99 per day for the FY 2026 H-1B cap season. This temporary increase is in response to the volume of previous H-1B registrations that exceeded the daily credit card limit. “Transactions exceeding $99,999.99 may be made via Automated Clearing House (ACH). The use of ACH may require the payor to alert their bank in advance to remove any potential ACH block on their account. We will provide additional information before the initial H-1B registration period starts. An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for the beneficiary named in the H-1B petition was selected in the H-1B registration process. Additional information on the electronic registration process is available on the H-1B Electronic Registration Process page.”
“For FY 2026, we have made multiple enhancements for organizational and representative accounts for H-1B filing. These enhancements include the ability for paralegals to work with more than one legal representative. A paralegal will now be able to accept invitations from multiple legal representative accounts, allowing them to prepare H-1B registrations, Form I-129 H-1B petitions, and Form I-907 requests for premium processing for different attorneys, all within one paralegal account, which will be an easier way for legal representatives to add paralegals to company clients. Pre-population of certain Form I-129 fields from selected H-1B registrations and the ability to prepare a spreadsheet of H-1B beneficiary data and upload the information to pre-populate data in H-1B registrations. These enhancements will be live before the start of the initial registration period,” USCIS informed.
