U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today that it received 479,953 total registrations for this year’s H-1B lottery — a figure substantially less than last year’s record-breaking 780,884.

The agency attributed the decline to the undertaking of fraud investigations and implementation of the new beneficiary-centric selection process, noting that the number of unique employers for FY2025 (approximately 52,700) was also comparable to the number last year for FY2024 (approximately 52,000). The number of unique beneficiaries was similar to last year’s, but the number of multiple registrations for the same beneficiary decreased significantly.

The overall beneficiary selection rate was around 25.8%, with 114,017 unique beneficiaries selected out of approximately 442,000. The overall registration selection rate was 25.6%, with 120,603 registrations selected out of 470,342 eligible registrations.

USCIS distributed the following chart, showing registration and selection numbers for fiscal years 2021-2025.

Fiscal Year Total Registrations Eligible

Registrations*

 Eligible Registrations for Beneficiaries with No Other Eligible Obligations Eligible Registrations for Beneficiaries with Multiple Eligible Registrations Selected Registrations
2021 274,237 269,424 241,299 28,125 124,415
2022 308,613 301,447 211,304 90,143 131,924
2023 483,927 474,421 309,241 165,180 127,600
2024 780,884 758,994 350,103 408,891 188,400**
2025 479,953 470,342 423,028 47,314 120,603***

*The count of eligible registrations excludes duplicate registrations, those deleted by the prospective employer prior to the close of the registration period and those with failed payments.

**The number of initial selections for FY2024 — 110, 791 — was smaller in than in prior years primarily due to (a) establishing a higher anticipated petition filing rate by selected registrants based on prior years; and (b) higher projected Department of State approvals of H-1B1 visas, which count against the H-1B cap.

***USCIS selected the number of unique beneficiaries projected as needed to reach the congressionally mandated caps and exemptions. All properly submitted registrations for those beneficiaries that were selected were set to a selected status. Accordingly, the number of selected registrations was higher than the number of selected beneficiaries, and this number is not completely comparable to prior years that used a direct registration selection method.

BAL Analysis: BAL continues to review the information USCIS published Tuesday and will provide additional analysis in the days and weeks ahead.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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