There was another decrease in H-1B lottery registrations this year. There were 27% fewer entries in March 2025 as compared to March 2024 for the statutory maximum of 85,000 visas for “specialty occupation” workers. The H-1B visa is for professional jobs, for which a specific bachelor’s degree or higher is required. Each federal fiscal year, which runs October 1 to September 30 of the following year, there are 65,000 visas available for individuals with bachelor’s degrees and 20,000 additional visas for individuals with master’s or higher degrees from non-profit, accredited U.S. universities.
The elephant-in-the-room reason for this year’s decrease could be the flagging and unpredictable economy. Employers might want to delay hiring decisions until they know how trade wars, not to mention other wars, will impact their operations. In contrast, last year’s dramatic reduction in H-1B lottery entries resulted from USCIS’ shift to a “beneficiary-centric” model, which prevents multiple potential employers from submitting a lottery entry for the same person. That new model has stopped organizations from gaming the system by using subsidiary and affiliate companies in the same corporate group to enter the same person in the lottery.
During the Biden Administration, it was common for USCIS to run additional lottery selection rounds until USCIS was sure that all 85,000 visas had been allocated. Not so under the current administration. USCIS announced in July that there will be no more lottery rounds for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2025.
What is noteworthy is that even in a down and wildly unpredictable economy, employers still entered 343,981 individuals in the H-1B lottery. As I observed last year, these numbers beg the obvious question: Does Congress understand that 85,000 visas simply are not enough to meet the needs of U.S. employers for highly skilled workers? Immigration reform always has been a political third rail, but the numbers make it patently obvious that our current immigration laws are not keeping pace with employers’ needs. Call your representative and senators and urge bold action on immigration reform.