Business Immigration Insights

As we approach the H-1B cap season for fiscal year 2026, it is crucial for employers and prospective H-1B candidates to stay informed about the registration process, important deadlines, and recent changes.

On April 1, 2024, US Citizenship & Immigration Services announced the results of the FY2025 H-1B lottery:  more than 120,000 registrations were selected to meet the H-1B cap for the upcoming fiscal year beginning October 1.  Registrants who were selected were required to submit H-1B petitions to USCIS by June 30.

This is a follow up to our prior post on Domestic Visa Processing.

The Department of State has officially released the details of the long-anticipated domestic visa processing pilot program. The pilot program will be open starting on January 29, 2024, and will accept up to 20,000 applications, with applications accepted on a rolling basis. The system is set up to release approximately 4,000 application slots each week for the first 6 weeks of the program starting Monday, January 29, 2024. Once the weekly limit is reached, the system will be locked until the next set of slots are released following next week. The system will be open until April 1, 2024, or until all application slots are used, whichever comes first.

After a 20+ year hiatus in domestic visa processing, the Department of State is launching a pilot program to resume limited state-side processing of visa renewals in early 2024. According to a recent State Department announcement, the new pilot program will allow some individuals in the U.S. with visas to renew those visas without leaving the country or attending an interview at a U.S. Embassy or consulate outside the United States.