By Mark Adams
For employers contemplating to sponsor an individual on an H-1B visa, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 H-1B cap season is now open and will run until noon on March 19th. As background, H-1B Visas may be sought by employers looking to bring individuals to work in the United States for positions that require highly specialized knowledge and at a minimum requires a bachelor’s degree or higher in a directly related specific specialty (or its equivalent).
Sponsoring employers must first submit an electronic registration for the candidate (or candidates) during this short registration March 4th – March 19th window. However, they need to have an USCIS online account set up first before they can initiate the registration process.
Once set up, the sponsoring employer can then complete the registration application which includes:
Regarding the registrant/employer:
- Employer legal name (and any “Doing Business As” or “DBA” name if there is one)
- Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- Company Address
- Name, title, and contact information of the person authorized to sign for the company (whether that is a company official or the company’s legal representative).
Regarding the beneficiary/worker:
- Full legal name
- Sex
- Date of birth
- Passport information (valid passport or travel document number, country of issuance and expiration date)
- Education
A $215 fee per beneficiary is also submitted at the time of this electronic registration application. [So, if you are looking to sponsor 2 individuals, it would be $430, 3 individuals, it would be $645 and so on.]
Only registrations selected through the lottery are eligible to move forward to the full petition stage. Unlike previous years, the FY 2027 lottery is a weighted system with applications tied to higher wage level positions gaining more entries into the lottery than lower applications for lower paying jobs.
It is at the full petition stage that the selected employer then submits the full H-1B petition filing package (which includes the Form I-129 Labor Condition Application and supporting documentation – such as wage documentation and job description(s)). However, it is important to note that the petitioner must first submit a $100,000 fee per beneficiary BEFORE filing the petition (which can be done via the pay.gov website) as petitions filed without proof of payment will be denied. Other fees (such as a base filing fee, an asylum fee, ACWIA fee, and an fraud prevention fee) are also costs that are associated with the petitioning process.
These petitions may be submitted between April 1st and June 30th. Petitions that are approved will allow for those beneficiary/workers to begin employment starting on October 1st.
For FY 2027, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will allocate 85,000 new H-1B visas—65,000 under the regular cap and 20,000 for individuals holding a U.S. master’s degree or higher.
For more information, visit the US Citizenship and Immigration Services H-1B page at: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations.