The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has announced a significant change to how H-1B cap registrations will be selected. A final rule published in the Federal Register on December 29, 2025 revises the long-standing random lottery system used for H-1B cap selection, replacing it with wage-based selection. The rule will take effect on February 27, 2026, and will apply to the Fiscal Year 2027 (“FY2027”) H-1B cap registration season. The lottery selections for FY2027 are made on April 1, 2026.
Read moreH-1B Salary Based Selection Process Final Rule is Officially Withdrawn
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has announced that the January 2021 final rule modifying the H-1B selection process has officially been withdrawn by The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). This rule would have eliminated the random selection process known as the H-1B visa lottery, and replaced it with a process prioritizing those foreign nationals who are offered the highest salaries relative to their occupation and geographic area according to the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) prevailing wage system.
Read moreAILA files Lawsuit Challenging H-1B Wage-Based Selection Process
On Monday, May 17, 2021 under the representation of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), five nonprofit organizations and businesses filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s administration challenging the move from an H-1B lottery system to a wage-based selection process.
The suit addresses the implementation of a Trump administration regulation that replaced the H-1B random, computerized H-1B lottery with a system that allocates H-1B visa numbers according to the Department of Labor’s four-level wage system. The final rule which was made effective as of March 9, 2021, and later delayed by the Biden administration to December 31, 2021, gives priority in the H-1B selection process to foreign nationals whose offered salary falls within the highest level of their occupation, continuing on to select cases in descending order from OES wage levels III, II and I.
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