H-1B 2024-2025 Lottery: Final Rule Released

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a final rule to reduce potential fraud in the H-1B cap registration and random lottery process for U.S. Federal Fiscal Year 2024-2025 which begins on October 1st, 2024.

The initial registration period for the H-1B lottery 2024 timeline will begin at noon Eastern on March 6, 2024, and run through noon Eastern on March 22, 2024. USCIS intends to notify successful selection notifications by March 31. Important highlights about these H-1B lottery changes are outlined below. You can find the full text of the final rule on the Federal Register website.

Beneficiary-Centric Selection

Under the beneficiary-centric process, registrations will be selected by one (1) unique beneficiary rather than by registrations, which in the past was based on each separate job opportunity and employer.

USCIS will require beneficiary registrants to provide valid passport information or valid travel that will be linked to the H-1B filing. Each beneficiary must only be registered under one passport or travel document. USCIS prohibits a beneficiary from being registered under more than one travel document or passport.

The rule allows a beneficiary to enter the selection process with multiple registrations (i.e. employer job offers) but the selection will be limited to the unique beneficiary. USCIS will also permit related employers to file multiple registrations for the same beneficiary. However, this will not increase chances for selection and this ability may not be available in the future.

If a beneficiary is selected, each employer registrant who submitted a registration on their behalf will be notified of the selection and can file a petition on that beneficiary’s behalf.

Increased Anti-Fraud and Integrity Measure

The final rule clarifies that if a beneficiary attempts two entries into the selection process in any way, USCIS may find their registrations invalid and deny or revoke the approval of any H-1B lottery 2025 petition. An example would be submitting both a passport and a travel document.

Also, if an employer submits more than one registration per beneficiary, then all of the registrations submitted by the employer for the beneficiary will be considered invalid and USCIS may deny or revoke the approval of any petition filed for the beneficiary based on those invalid registrations.

Finally, USCIS re-affirms its ability to deny H-1B petitioners or revoke an approved petition where there is a change in the beneficiary’s identifying information from the identifying information as stated in the registration to the information as stated in the petition; the underlying registration contained a false attestation or was otherwise invalid; the registration fee was invalid; or where the H-1B cap-subject petition was not based on a valid registration.

Source: VisaNation, Inc