USCIS made significant changes to how the H-1B lottery operates beginning with the fiscal year 2025 cap season. The shift from employer-based to beneficiary-centric registration has altered how duplicate entries are counted and who controls the process. Employers, staffing companies, and foreign workers all face a different set of considerations under these updated rules.
Why USCIS Changed the Registration System
The original electronic registration system, introduced for FY2021, was designed to reduce the cost burden on employers before filing full petitions. However, USCIS identified a pattern of fraud almost immediately. Staffing companies and consultancies were submitting multiple registrations for the same foreign national through different employer entities, artificially inflating that individual’s odds of selection. An internal USCIS review found evidence of coordinated schemes involving thousands of duplicate registrations across the FY2022 and FY2023 cap seasons.
In response, USCIS published a final rule in January 2024, effective for the FY2025 registration period, that restructured the selection process around the individual beneficiary rather than the employer. Under the previous system, each registration submitted by a different employer counted as a separate entry in the lottery. Under the new beneficiary-centric model, all registrations tied to a single worker - identified by their passport number - are grouped together. The system selects the individual first, and then one of their associated registrations is chosen for petition filing.
The practical result is that submitting multiple registrations for the same person through different employers no longer increases that person’s chances of being selected. One worker equals one entry in the lottery pool, regardless of how many employers registered them. USCIS confirmed this approach in the preamble to the final rule, citing 8 CFR 214.2(h)(8)(iii)(A) as the regulatory basis for the change.
This reform specifically targeted what USCIS called “multiple registration abuse.” The agency documented cases where a single beneficiary had been registered by five, ten, or even more different employer entities in the same cap season. Because each registration previously functioned as an independent lottery ticket, these individuals had selection odds that were multiples of those available to workers with a single registration.
What the New Rules Require From Employers
Employers must still create or maintain a myUSCIS organizational account to submit H-1B registrations. The registration window for FY2026 opened in early March 2025, following the standard pattern USCIS established in recent years. Each registration requires the employer to provide the beneficiary’s full legal name, date of birth, country of birth, country of citizenship, and passport number. The passport number is now the key identifier that links registrations to a specific individual.
Employers who file registrations with incorrect or inconsistent passport information risk having their registration invalidated. If a beneficiary holds multiple valid passports - which some dual nationals do - USCIS has stated that only one passport should be used across all registrations submitted on that person’s behalf in a given cap year. Using different passport numbers for the same individual to circumvent the beneficiary-centric system constitutes fraud and can result in denial of the petition, a finding of misrepresentation, and potential bars to future immigration benefits.
The registration fee remained at $10 per registration for FY2025, though USCIS has proposed increasing various filing fees across multiple visa categories in recent rulemaking activity. Employers must pay this fee at the time of registration submission during the open registration window. Registrations submitted without payment are not accepted into the lottery pool.
Once USCIS conducts the initial lottery selection, selected registrants receive a notice in their myUSCIS account. The employer then has 90 days from the date of selection to file a complete Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker. Missing this 90-day window typically forfeits the selected registration, though USCIS may issue additional selection rounds later in the fiscal year if the cap has not been reached.
Employers should also be aware that the FY2025 changes did not eliminate the separate advanced-degree exemption lottery, commonly called the master’s cap. USCIS still runs a two-step process: the 65,000 regular cap lottery is conducted first across all eligible registrations, and the 20,000 slots reserved for U.S. advanced degree holders are then drawn from the remaining pool of unselected registrations for applicants who qualify. The sequencing matters because it affects the statistical advantage that a U.S. master’s degree or higher provides.
How Selection Odds Have Changed
Selection rates under the old system were difficult to interpret because a significant portion of the lottery pool consisted of duplicate beneficiary entries. USCIS reported that for FY2023, roughly 408,891 registrations were submitted but represented a meaningfully smaller number of unique individuals once duplicates were accounted for. The true per-person selection odds were therefore higher than the raw registration numbers suggested, but workers without multiple employer sponsors were effectively disadvantaged compared to those who had arranged for several entities to register them.
Under the beneficiary-centric model, the per-person selection odds are more uniform. For FY2025, USCIS received approximately 470,342 unique beneficiary registrations. With 85,000 total cap slots available (65,000 regular plus 20,000 advanced degree), the overall selection rate was roughly 18 percent. That rate reflects true per-person odds in a way the pre-reform numbers did not, making it easier for workers and employers to assess realistic chances of selection.
Workers who were previously relying on multi-employer registration strategies now need to plan differently. A beneficiary who genuinely has legitimate job offers from two or more employers can still have multiple registrations submitted - and all of those registrations are visible to USCIS - but only one slot will be selected if the individual is chosen. The employer associated with the selected registration is the one who must proceed with the Form I-129 filing. The other employers’ registrations are not transferable.
Practical Steps for the FY2026 Cap Season
Employers planning to sponsor H-1B workers for FY2026 should ensure their myUSCIS organizational accounts are active and that all attorney or representative access is properly authorized before the registration window opens. USCIS typically announces the exact registration dates in January or February, and the window generally stays open for at least 14 calendar days.
Accurate passport information remains the most important data element in the new system. Employers should collect a clear copy of the beneficiary’s current, unexpired passport well before the registration window opens to avoid last-minute errors. Any discrepancy between the passport number on the registration and the passport number later submitted with the Form I-129 will trigger a request for evidence or, in some cases, outright denial.
Beneficiaries who are currently in the United States in another nonimmigrant status - such as F-1 OPT, L-1, or O-1 - remain eligible for H-1B cap registration. Workers in cap-exempt H-1B status, such as those employed by qualifying nonprofit research organizations or institutions of higher education under 8 CFR 214.2(h)(19)(iii)(B), are not subject to the lottery and do not need to go through the registration process at all.
Consulting an immigration attorney before submitting registrations is advisable, particularly for employers new to the H-1B process or for beneficiaries with complex immigration histories.
USCIS published detailed instructions for the FY2025 registration process in a policy alert dated February 2024, which remains the most current official guidance on how the beneficiary-centric lottery operates in practice. Employers and applicants can access that document directly on the USCIS website at uscis.gov under the H-1B cap season section.
