May 4, 2010
CIS has announced that as of April 27, 2010, approximately 16,500 Fiscal Year 2011 regular H-1B cap petitions and approximately 6,900 U.S. Master's/advanced degree cap petitions have been received. Please note this is an increase of approximately 2,900 regular cap cases and 1,100 advanced degree cases since the last count update was released by CIS on April 15, 2010. All H-1B cap cases filed through April 27, 2010 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.
The Immigration Service will continue to accept H-1B petitions subject to the Fiscal Year 2011 cap. For regular cap cases there is annual quota of 65,000 H-1B slots per fiscal year, minus those H-1B slots set aside for Free Trade Visas for Chileans and Singaporeans, for a total of 58,200. For advanced degree H-1B petitions, there is an additional annual quota of 20,000 slots per fiscal year. CIS has indicated that on the day it determines that sufficient regular H cap petitions have been received to meet the Fiscal Year 2011 quota, it will conduct a computerized random selection lottery from among the petitions received on that day.
