The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap will begin at noon Eastern on March 7, 2025, and will conclude at noon Eastern on March 24, 2025. During this timeframe, prospective petitioners and their representatives must electronically register each beneficiary through a USCIS online account and submit the necessary registration fee.
To participate in the selection process, those seeking H-1B visas must complete the online registration using a USCIS account and pay a registration fee of $215 for each submission. This fee applies to every individual beneficiary registered under the program.
Employers who intend to file H-1B petitions but do not have a USCIS online account must establish an organizational account before proceeding. For employers who previously held an H-1B registrant account for the FY 2021 through FY 2024 registration periods but did not use it for FY 2025, their existing accounts will be automatically converted into organizational accounts upon their next login. First-time registrants can create an account at any time. Additional information, including instructional videos, can be found on the Organizational Accounts Frequently Asked Questions page, which will be updated with FY 2026 registration details before the opening of the registration period.
Legal representatives are permitted to add clients to their accounts at any time. However, both representatives and registrants must wait until March 7, 2025, to enter beneficiary details and submit the registration with the applicable fee. The selection process takes place after the registration period ends, meaning there is no need to register on the first day of the window.
For FY 2026, USCIS will continue using the beneficiary-centric selection process that was implemented in FY 2025. Under this system, selections are made based on unique beneficiaries rather than individual registrations. If USCIS receives a sufficient number of registrations for unique beneficiaries by March 24, it will conduct a random selection process and notify users of their selection status through their USCIS online accounts. If the number of unique beneficiary registrations falls short, all properly submitted registrations during the initial period will be selected. By March 31, USCIS plans to inform prospective petitioners and representatives if at least one of their registrations has been selected.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has approved a temporary increase in the daily credit card transaction limit to accommodate the anticipated volume of H-1B registrations. The limit, which was previously set at $24,999.99 per day, has been raised to $99,999.99 per day for the FY 2026 H-1B cap season. This change addresses past issues where daily credit card limits were exceeded due to high registration volumes. Payments exceeding $99,999.99 may be made through Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers, though users are advised to check with their banks to remove any potential ACH transaction blocks beforehand. USCIS will provide additional guidance regarding payment procedures before the registration period begins.
To be eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition—including petitions for beneficiaries eligible for the advanced degree exemption—petitioners must ensure that the beneficiary named in their petition was selected during the H-1B registration process. Further details about the electronic registration process are available on the H-1B Electronic Registration Process page.
Organizational Account Enhancements for FY 2026
For the FY 2026 H-1B filing season, USCIS has introduced several improvements to organizational and representative accounts to streamline the registration and petitioning process. These enhancements include:
- Paralegals can work with multiple legal representatives: Paralegals will now be able to accept invitations from multiple legal representative accounts. This update enables them to assist different attorneys in preparing H-1B registrations, Form I-129 H-1B petitions, and Form I-907 requests for premium processing using a single paralegal account.
- Simplified process for adding paralegals to company client accounts: Legal representatives will now have an easier way to add paralegals to assist with H-1B filings for company clients.
- Pre-population of Form I-129 fields: Certain fields in Form I-129 will be automatically pre-filled based on selected H-1B registrations, reducing data entry errors and improving efficiency.
- Spreadsheet upload functionality for beneficiary data: Employers and legal representatives will have the option to prepare an H-1B beneficiary data spreadsheet and upload it to pre-populate registration information, further streamlining the process.
These system improvements are scheduled to go live before the initial registration period opens in March 2025, ensuring that prospective petitioners and legal representatives can take full advantage of the enhanced features.