H1B Lottery 2025
The USCIS fiscal year 2025 runs from October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025. Those who applied had about a 26% chance of being selected for an H1B visa during the initial registration period from March 6-25, 2024. Let's dig further into the data...
But before we dig in, let's understand the H1B caps enforced by Congress.
Congress set the current annual regular cap for the H-1B category at 65,000. Not all H-1B nonimmigrant visas (or status grants) are subject to this annual cap. Please note that up to 6,800 visas are set aside from the 65,000 each fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore free trade agreements. Unused visas in this group become available for H-1B use for the next fiscal year’s regular H-1B cap.
H1B Lottery Chances
| Fiscal Year | Total Registrations | Eligible Registrations | Selected Registrations | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 479,953 | 470,342 | 120,603 | ~26% |
| 2024 | 780,884 | 758,994 | 188,400 | ~25% |
| 2023 | 483,927 | 474,421 | 127,600 | ~27% |
| 2022 | 308,613 | 301,447 | 131,924 | ~44% |
| 2021 | 274,237 | 269,424 | 124,415 | ~46% |
On April 1, 2024, USCIS announced that it received enough electronic registrations during the initial registration period to reach the fiscal year 2025 H1B cap, including the advanced degree exemption also known as the "master's cap". USCIS published the latest data, depicted in the above table.
Note that the number of selected registrations for each year is higher than the 65,000 limit mandated by Congress. Thus, as mentioned above, there are a few exemptions from the "regular cap" lottery, specifically the advanced degree exemption:
The advanced degree exemption is an exemption from the H-1B cap for beneficiaries who have earned a U.S. master's degree or higher and is available until the number of beneficiaries who are exempt on this basis exceeds 20,000.
Furthermore, in addition to the "regular cap" of 65,000 and the US "master's cap" of 20,000, there are a few other exemption rules, meaning the difference between the number of selected registrations and the regular and master's cap combined of 85,000 comes from:
H-1B workers performing labor or services in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam may also be exempt from the H-1B cap (see the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 (CNRA), Public Law 110-229). H-1B workers in Guam and the CNMI are exempt from the H-1B cap if their employers file the petition before December 31, 2029.