On January 9, 2020, USCIS formally announced the implementation of the H-1B registration process for fiscal year 2021 H‑1B cap-subject petitions through the Federal Register.
The initial registration period will run from March 1 through March 20, 2020, for FY 2021 H-1B numerical allocations. The announcement provided the following important details:
- During this timeframe, H-1B cap-subject petitioners, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption, seeking to file a FY 2021 H-1B cap petition will be required to first register electronically with USCIS and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each submission.
- Prospective petitioners or their authorized representatives must electronically submit a separate registration naming each alien for whom they seek to file an H-1B cap-subject petition. Duplicate registrations are prohibited.
- As described in the H-1B registration final rule, if more than a sufficient number of registrations are received, USCIS will randomly select the number of registrations projected as needed to reach the FY 2021 H-1B numerical allocations after the initial registration period closes. They will notify registrants with selected registrations no later than March 31, 2020.
- Prospective petitioners with selected registrations will be eligible to file a FY 2021 cap-subject petition only for the alien named in the registration and within the filing period indicated on the eligibility notice.
USCIS will only consider a cap-subject H-1B petition to be properly filed if it is based on a valid, selected registration for the same beneficiary. Further, a petitioner may only submit one registration per beneficiary. 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.
We created the flowchart below for visual clarity of the whole H-1B process, including the new H-1B registration system for FY 2021. Please click on the image to enlarge.
