H-1B Cap Reached for Fiscal Year

December 15, 2009

As noted below, USCIS has announced that the H-1B cap has been met for this Fiscal Year as of December 21st. That means that, unless an H-1B workers has already been counted against the cap, cap-subject employers must generally wait until April 1, 2010 to file H-1B petitions for effective dates starting October 1, 2010.

Fiscal Year 2010 H-1B Cap Count

As of December 21, 2009, USCIS has received sufficient petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY2010. USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY2010 that are received after December 21, 2009 USCIS will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all petitions that are subject to the cap and were received on December 21, 2009.

As noted, cap-subject petitions received on December 21st will be put into a lottery. Those selected in the lottery will be processed and those not selected will be returned. Not all petitions are foreclosed at this point, and change of employer petitions, those requesting extensions of stay, and petitions by cap-exempt employers may still be filed.

Please contact Matt Raynes at our Bangor, Maine office with questions.

This alert is provided as general information, and is not a substitute for legal or other professional advice.