U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has formally announce the implementation of the H-1B registration process for fiscal year 2021 H‑1B cap-subject petitions. Based on the final rule, the initial registration period is from March 1 through March 20, 2020, for the FY 2021 H-1B numerical allocations.
- During this timeframe, H-1B cap-subject petitioners, including those applying for individuals with advanced U.S. degrees, will be required to first register electronically with USCIS and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each submission.
- A separate registration for each beneficiary is required. Duplicate registrations are prohibited.
- If more than a sufficient number of registrations are received, USCIS will conduct a lottery to meet the numerical allocations for FY 2021, after the initial registration period closes. USCIS will notify selected registrants no later than March 31, 2020.
- Selected registrants will be eligible to file a FY 2021 cap-subject petition only for the beneficiary named in the registration and within the filing period indicated on the eligibility notice.
USCIS will not consider a cap-subject H-1B petition to be properly filed unless it is based on a valid, selected registration for the same beneficiary and the appropriate fiscal year, unless the registration requirement is suspended. Additionally, although petitioners can register multiple aliens during a single online submission, a petitioner may only submit one registration per beneficiary in any fiscal year. If a petitioner submits more than one registration per beneficiary in the same fiscal year, all registrations filed by that petitioner relating to that beneficiary for that fiscal year will be considered invalid.