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The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed that the United States has reached the annual cap for H-1B visas. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant work visa that allows American employers to hire foreign workers with specialized skills to work in the United States for a specific period of time.
The H-1B visa allows American businesses to hire foreign skilled workers in specialized occupations.
USCIS said it had received a sufficient number of petitions to meet both the regular limit of 65,000 and the U.S. advanced degree exemption, commonly known as the master’s limit, set at 20,000.
This means that the H-1B visas allocated for fiscal year 2024 have expired.
In November this year, the US had informed that they are ready to launch a pilot program for domestic renewal of certain categories of H-1B visas in December.
The move will benefit a large number of Indian technology professionals. The US said that the pilot program will be limited to 20,000 participants.
What happens if you don’t get your US H-1B visa for 2024?
USCIS has informed that people who submitted applications for H-1B visa to visit the United States but were not selected will be issued non-selection notices through online accounts.
The status will be shown as ‘Not Selected’, making them ineligible to file an H-1B visa cap petition for this registration.
“We will send non-selection notices to registrants through their online accounts over the next few days,” USCIS said.
To determine whether an H-1B visa petition falls within the threshold, USCIS evaluates the information collected during the electronic registration process.
This limit includes the standard 65,000 H-1B visas and an exemption for advanced degree holders up to 20,000. The annual regular limit for the H-1B category is set at 65,000, with an additional 6,800 reserved for the H-1B1 program under the US-Chile and US-Singapore free trade agreements.
Unused visas in this category become available against the next fiscal year’s regular H-1B limit.
US Visa: H-1B Visa Important Points
-USCIS has informed that they will continue to accept and process petitions exempt from limitation
-This includes current H-1B workers who still retain their cap number. These petitions serve various purposes such as extending the length of stay, changing the conditions of employment, facilitating employer changes, and allowing concurrent work on additional H-1B positions.
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Published: 14 Dec 2023, 10:01 PM IST
