USCIS receives 343,981 eligible registrations for FY26, sees 27% drop from FY25

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received 343,981 eligible registrations for Fiscal Year 2026, according to newly released data from USCIS. The registrations are for the 85,000 H-1B visas allowed for a year. The registrations for FY 2026 saw a decline of 27% from 470,342 for FY 2025.

Eligible registrations for H-1B visas for fiscal 2025 were 470,342.

Higher application fees likely played a role in the recent decline in H-1B registrations. Under a new fee rule introduced by the Joe Biden Administration, the cost of filing an H-1B registration for Fiscal Year 2026 rose sharply—from just $10 to $215.

The H-1B visa programme enables US companies to employ skilled foreign workers.

Indians make up the largest share of H-1B visa holders. In 2022, Indian nationals secured 77% of the 320,000 approved H-1B visas, and in fiscal year 2023, this figure remained high at 72.3% of the 386,000 visas issued.

H-1B cap registrations declined this year, but USCIS still rejected almost two-thirds of applications due to the low annual H-1B limit, according to Forbes.

The immigration service makes selections by lottery in any year the agency receives more H-1B electronic registrations than permitted by the annual limit.

The H-1B annual limit is 65,000, plus a 20,000 exemption for individuals with an advanced degree from a US university. For the past two decades, employers have exhausted the quota every year, according to a report in Forbes.

UNIQUE APPLICANTS FOR H-1B VISAS FELL SHARPLY

A detailed look shows that 336,153 eligible registrations came from individuals with only one registration, while just 7,828 registrations were from beneficiaries with multiple submissions. This is a significant decrease compared to prior years, when multiple filings made up a larger share of total registrations, according to Newsweek.

The number of unique employers increased, going from approximately 52,700 for FY 2025 to 57,600 for FY 2026, a rise of 9%. However, H-1B registrations filed per employer declined. For FY 2026, employers filed an average of 6.0 eligible registrations, a decline of 33% from 8.9 eligible registrations per employer for FY 2025, Forbes reported, citing Foundation for American Policy data analysis.

Industries such as technology, finance, and academia remain some of the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa programme. In 2024, leading firms like Amazon, Google, and Meta were granted thousands of H-1B visas, according to Newsweek.

Tesla, under the leadership of Elon Musk, reportedly used the program to bring hundreds of skilled workers to the US

'SECOND ROUND OF SELECTIONS MAY BE LESS LIKELY'

A second round of selections may be less likely to occur in 2025, according to Kevin Miner of Fragomen, an immigration firm.

"I think it is less likely this year that there will be another pull of names from the lottery like they have done in prior years," Forbes quoted Miner as saying.

"Because employers had to make a larger investment into the lottery entries, it is likely that most individuals who were selected in the lottery will end up with an H-1B filed for them, so the chances of another pull of names from the lottery are probably lower this year," he added.

Though the registrations have fallen by 27 percent, the number of applicants is still very high and shows the popularity of H-1B visas.