U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released the selection numbers for the fiscal year (FY) 2026 H-1B cap, revealing a selection rate of approximately 35 percent compared to 29 percent in FY 2025.
Quick Hits
- The number of eligible H-1B registrations decreased by 26.9 percent from 470,342 in FY 2025 to 343,981.
- The number of unique beneficiaries significantly decreased from 423,038 in FY 2025 to 336,153.
- The average registration per beneficiary slightly decreased from 1.06 in FY 2025 to 1.01, indicating an average of one submitted registration per beneficiary.
- An increase in the selection rate from approximately 29 percent in FY 2025 to approximately 35 percent.
| Fiscal year | Number of unique employers | Number of unique beneficiaries | Selected Registrations |
| 2025 | Approximately 52,700 | 423,028 | 135,137 |
| 2026 | Approximately 57,600 | 336,153 | 120,141 |
Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
A closer look at USCIS's recently published FY 2026 H-1B cap registration data shows that USCIS selected 120,141 registrations out of 336,153 eligible registrations for beneficiaries with no other eligible registrations. This resulted in a selection rate of approximately 35 percent.
Since the approximate 24.8 percent selection rate in FY 2024, the selection rate has been trending upward, reaching approximately 29 percent in FY 2025 and approximately 35 percent in FY 2026, reflecting roughly a 5 percent increase each year.
Since its initiation in 2024, USCIS has continued to use the beneficiary-centric system, which aims to ensure integrity in the H-B registration system and reduce fraud by focusing on each unique beneficiary as opposed to each registration. To further ensure fairness, USCIS is reviewing the FY 2025 and FY 2026 data to identify fraud. The agency will deny or revoke petitions where there is a finding of any attempt to gain an unfair advantage and will make referrals to law enforcement for criminal prosecution where appropriate.
Next Steps
For selected registrants, the H-1B petition filing period is from April 1 to June 30, 2025. If USCIS does not receive enough H-1B petitions during the filing period to meet the H-1B annual limit, it may conduct a second lottery. USCIS has not yet announced whether there will be additional selection rounds for FY 2026.
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