DHS announces new rule for H-1B cap lottery

On January 31, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule amending regulations governing the H-1B lottery process.  The final rule becomes effective April 1, 2019.  While the rule calls for a new electronic registration process for H-1B employers, the registration process will not go into effect until next year.  This means that H-1B cap petitions filed in April 2019 for fiscal year 2020 will use the same filing process as in prior years.

The final rule reverses the order in which USCIS will select H-1B petitions in the lottery.  Beginning with the April 2019 filing season, USCIS will count all applicants in the in the standard cap lottery first.  Once a sufficient number of applicants have been selected, USCIS will conduct the lottery selection for the advanced degree cap.  USCIS predicts that changing the order (in previous years the advanced degree cap lottery was conducted first) will increase the number of applicants with advanced degrees who are selected in the lottery.  The agency estimates that it will see an increase of 16 percent. 

OVIS will continue to monitor the implementation of the rule change.