On May 13, 2025, USCIS announced the selection of 336,153 H1B CAP registrations for FY 2026. USCIS has notified all employers with selected beneficiaries that they are eligible to file an H-1B petition for those beneficiaries via their USCIS online accounts. Online accounts will display one of the following registration statuses:
- Submitted: The registration has been submitted and is eligible for selection. If the initial selection process has been completed, this registration remains eligible, unless subsequently invalidated, for selection in any subsequent selections for the fiscal year for which it was submitted.
- Selected: Selected to file an H-1B cap petition.
- Not Selected: Not eligible to file an H-1B cap petition based on this registration.
- Denied: The passport or travel document information listed on the registration is invalid, or multiple registrations were submitted by or on behalf of the same registrant for the same beneficiary. If denied as a duplicate registration, all registrations submitted by or on behalf of the same registrant for this beneficiary for the fiscal year are invalid.
- Invalidated – failed payment: A registration was submitted but the payment method was declined, not reconciled, or otherwise invalid.
- Deleted: The submitted registration has been deleted and is no longer eligible for selection.
- Processing submission: USCIS is processing your submission. It may take up to 72 hours for all of your case information to show on the case details page. While it is processing, you will be unable to access your draft.
USCIS has provided updated selection data, as follows:
- The number of unique employers for FY 2026 (approx. 57,600) was comparable to the number for FY 2025 (approx. 52,700).
- The number of eligible unique beneficiaries for FY 2026 (336,153) was significantly lower than for FY 2025 (423,028) — a 20.5% reduction.
- The number of eligible registrations was also dramatically lower for FY 2026 (343,981) compared with FY 2025 (470,342) — a 26.9% reduction.
UCSIS has selected 118,660 unique beneficiaries (resulting in 120,141 selected registrations) for FY 2025, approximately 35.2% of registrations submitted, and notes that this is an increase from FY 2025 (31.2%).
Please note that USCIS has automatically invalidated duplicate registrations by the same registrant. A registrant will not be able to appeal USCIS’s finding that the registrations are duplicates.
USCIS reports an average of 1.01 registrations per beneficiary for FY 2026, compared to 1.06 for FY 2025, which they attribute to the new beneficiary-centric selection process.
As a reminder, each time a registration is submitted, prospective petitioners are required to attest under penalty of perjury that:
- All the information contained in the registration submission is complete, true, and correct;
- The registrations reflect a legitimate job offer; and
- The registrant, or the organization for whom the registration is submitted, has not worked with, or agreed to work with, another registrant, petitioner, agent, or other individual or entity to submit a registration to unfairly increase chances of selection for the beneficiary or beneficiaries in this submission.
Failure to adhere to these requirements can result in denial and revocation of petitions, and criminal prosecution. USCIS continues to investigate fraud and make law enforcement referrals for criminal prosecution based on evidence from FY 2023 and 2024 H1B cap seasons, and they are in the process of reviewing FY 2025 data and will review FY 2026 data for violations of the requirements above.
