On February 5, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap season will open at noon ET on March 7, 2025, and run through noon ET on March 24, 2025. During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives must use a USCIS online account to register each beneficiary electronically for the selection process and pay the associated $215 registration fee.

Below are highlights of the USCIS announcement:

  • H-1B petitioning employers who do not have a USCIS online account must create an organizational account. Existing accounts for H-1B petitioning employers who had an H-1B registrant account for the FY 2021–2024 H-1B registration seasons, but did not use the account for FY 2025, will be converted to an organizational account after their next log-in. First-time registrants can create an account at any time. Additional information is available on the Organizational Accounts Frequently Asked Questions USCIS said that the FAQs will be updated with FY 2026 information “before the start of the initial registration period.”
  • USCIS will use the beneficiary-centric selection process launched in FY 2025. Under that process, registrations are selected by unique beneficiary rather than by registration. USCIS said, “If we receive registrations for enough unique beneficiaries by March 24, we will randomly select unique beneficiaries and send selection notifications via users’ USCIS online accounts. If we do not receive registrations for enough unique beneficiaries, all registrations for unique beneficiaries that were properly submitted in the initial registration period will be selected. We intend to notify by March 31 prospective petitioners and representatives whose accounts have at least one registration selected.”
  • The Department of the Treasury has approved a temporary increase in the daily credit card transaction limit from $24,999.99 to $99,999.99 per day for the FY 2026 H-1B cap season “in response to the volume of previous H-1B registrations that exceeded the daily credit card limit.” Transactions of more than $99,999.99 may be made via Automated Clearing House (ACH).

USCIS also said that for FY 2026, it is making “multiple enhancements” for organizational and representative accounts for H-1B filing, to go live before the start of the initial registration period, including:

  • The ability for paralegals to work with more than one legal representative;
  • An easier way for legal representatives to add paralegals to company clients;
  • Pre-population of certain Form I-129 fields from selected H-1B registrations; and
  • The ability to prepare a spreadsheet of H-1B beneficiary data and upload the information to pre-populate data in H-1B registrations.