March 28:
USCIS will shortly conduct a lottery to choose enough beneficiaries to reach the FY 2025 H-1B quota, which includes the master's cap for holders of advanced US degrees, as the initial registration period for the FY 2025 H-1B cap season closes on March 25.
The immigration office made the announcement on Tuesday that it will tell all potential petitioners who have beneficiaries who have been chosen for H-1B cap-subject petitions, of their eligibility to do so. Once this is finished, it will send out another online alert.
About 70% of the 85,000 H-1B cap-subject visas, including the 20,000 master's quota reserved for holders of advanced US degrees, have gone to Indian tech workers in recent years.
In the meantime, USCIS is moving the filing site for H-1B Form I-129 to a lockbox as of April 1. Form I-129 petitions for H-1B and H-1B1 (HSC) must no longer be submitted to USCIS service centres as of that date.
All paper-based Form I-129 applications for H-1B and H-1B1 (HSC) must be submitted to USCIS lockbox locations. Cap, non-cap, and cap-exempt H-1B filings are included in this. H-1B or H-1B1 (HSC) petitions received at a USCIS service centre on or after April 1, 2024, will be rejected, according to USCIS. There won't be an extension offered.
Particular mailing addresses are provided by USCIS for cases that fall under the H-1B quota. Please go to the USCIS Form I-129 Direct Filing Addresses page to ascertain the exact mailing address. USCIS stated that it may reject a petition if it is filed in the incorrect area. Petition rejections will not keep their filing date.
A petition may be refiled online or at the proper place if USCIS rejects it because it was submitted at the incorrect address. Petitions pertaining to the H-1B cap may be refiled online or at the appropriate location, provided that they are submitted within the 90-day filing window specified on the selection notice.
Online accounts for organisation and filing . New online organisational accounts that enable many individuals inside an organisation and their legal representatives to work together on H-1B registrations, H-1B petitions, and any related Form I-907 were introduced by USCIS on February 28.
The Organisational Accounts Frequently Asked Questions page has information on organisational accounts.
On March 25, USCIS also opened online filing for non-cap H-1B petitions using Form I-129 and related Form I-907. Petitioners whose registrations have been chosen may start filing H-1B cap petitions and related Forms I-907 online on April 1.
Petitioners will still be able to submit their Form I-129 H-1B petition and any related Form I-907 on paper, if they so choose. But according to USCIS, users won't be able to connect their online accounts to paper-filed Forms I-129 and I-907 during the initial rollout of organisational accounts. As of March 25, no correspondence or final notices for any H-1B or H-1B1 (HSC) petitions will be sent out using prepaid mailers.
USCIS will no longer be able to use any prepaid mailers for H-1B or H-1B1 (HSC) submissions, as H-1B intake is now done online or at the lockbox. Notifications of H-1B petition approval are printed and sent via first-class mail using an entirely automated procedure. When the case status of a case in their account changes, MyUSCIS account users will also receive a notification via email or text message, and then a paper notice through mail.
A final regulation that modifies the fees needed for the majority of immigration applications and petitions was released by USCIS on January 31, 2024. April 1, 2024, is when the new fees go into effect.
We will not accept petitions that are not postmarked by April 1, 2024, unless they include the increased fees. Furthermore, a new edition of Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, will be available on April 1, 24. According to USCIS, there won't be a grace period for submitting the updated Form I-129 since it needs to employ the revised fee computation.
A preview of the 04/01/24 edition of Form I-129 (PDF, 2.07 MB) and accompanying instructions (PDF, 428.11 KB) have been released by USCIS.
When determining the correct form version and fees, USCIS will utilise the postmark date of the filing; however, for the purposes of any regulatory or statutory filing deadlines, it will use the receipt date.
