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H-1B Lottery Completed

12. Apr. 2018

USCIS announced that on April 11, 2018, it used a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select the 65,000 general-category cap cases and the 20,000 advanced degree cap cases that will be processed. USCIS will reject and return all unselected petitions with their filing fees (unless the petition is found to be a duplicate filing).

USCIS has not announced when it expects to complete data entry for the selected cases nor when it expects to issue receipt notices.

This year, USCIS received 190,098 H-1B petitions during the filing period of April 2nd through 6th.  This number represents a 4.5 percent decrease from last year. The number of cap cases received in the past few years:

  • April 2017: 199,000
  • April 2016: 236,000
  • April 2015: 233,000
  • April 2014: 172.500
  • April 2013: 124,000
  • 2009 to 2012: cap was not reached