U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 29, 2026, that it has received enough petitions to reach the cap for the additional 27,736 H-2B visas made available for the second allocation of returning workers for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 with employment start dates from April 1 to April 30, 2026, under the H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule. April 21, 2026, was the final receipt date for petitions requesting supplemental H-2B visas under the second allocation. The additional H-2B visas are intended to support U.S. businesses with seasonal or temporary workforce needs, including those in critical sectors of the U.S. economy, USCIS said.
On January 30, 2026, the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor jointly announced the FY 2026 temporary final rule, increasing the cap on H-2B nonimmigrant visas by up to 64,716 additional visas. “These supplemental visas are available only to U.S. businesses that are suffering irreparable harm or will suffer impending irreparable harm without the ability to employ all of the H-2B workers requested in their petition, as attested by the employer on a new attestation form,” USCIS noted.
Additional information on the FY 2026 supplemental visas is available on USCIS’s Temporary Increase in H-2B Nonimmigrant Visas for FY 2026 page.
