U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it has received enough petitions to meet the congressionally mandated caps for H-1B visas for fiscal year (FY) 2025. This includes the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 U.S. advanced degree exemption, commonly known as the master’s cap.

Quick Hits

• USCIS has reached the FY 2025 H-1B visa cap, including the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 U.S. advanced degree exemption (master’s cap).
• Nonselection notices will be sent to registrants soon.

In the coming days, USCIS will send nonselection notices to registrants through their online accounts. Once all nonselection notifications have been sent, the status for properly submitted registrations that were not selected for the FY 2025 H-1B numerical allocations will be updated to: “Not Selected: Not selected – not eligible to file an H-1B cap petition based on this registration.”

USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are exempt from the cap. This includes petitions filed for current H-1B workers who have been previously counted against the cap and still retain their cap number.

Registration for the H-1B cap lottery for FY 2026 is expected to open in March 2025.

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