October 1, 2009
CIS has announced that as of September 25, 2009, approximately 46,700 Fiscal Year 2010 regular H-1B cap petitions and approximately 20,000 U.S. Master's/advanced degree cap petitions had been received. The prior count of August 28 showed that 45,100 cap cases had been received, indicating an increase of only 1600 in one month. CIS continues to accept both H-1B cap and advanced degree petitions.
Please note that regular H-1B petitions are capped at 58,200 per fiscal year (i.e, a total of 65,000 H-1B slots per fiscal year, minus those H-1B slots set aside for Free Trade Visas for Chileans and Singaporeans). This leaves over 10,000 regular cap H-1B numbers left for this fiscal year. Further, H-1B U.S. Master's/advanced degree cases are capped at 20,000 per fiscal year, but the CIS continues to accept them because the approximately 20,000 received to date will likely not all be approvable. CIS has indicated that on the day it determines that sufficient regular H cap petitions have been received to meet the Fiscal Year 2010 quota, it will conduct a computerized random selection lottery from among the petitions received on that day.
All H-1B cap cases filed through July 3, 2009 have been accepted and counted against the H-1B quota. This does not mean that the filings have been approved, but just that they have not been subject to an H cap lottery. In addition, please note that any Master's cap cases filed after the Master's cap has been reached will then be counted toward the regular H cap until that cap has been reached.
