USCIS Received 781K H1B Registrations for FY 2024 Season (2024)

As most of you know, USCIS conducted H1B Lottery for the fiscal year(FY) 2024 season during last week of March 2023, and many have been eagerly waiting to know the total count of H1B registrations, how many were selected, and other common statistics related to the H1B Visa 2024 season.

USCIS updated its H1B registration page and sent an update to its stakeholders with all the details. In this article, we will review all those details and look at the insights around the chances of the second-round lottery.

If you are applying for H1B in 2024, you must read article: H1B Visa 2025 – Timeline, Lottery, Results, News.

Background of H1B 2024 Season, Lottery

USCIS, as part of their standard H1B registration process, for the H1B FY 2024 season, accepted H1B registrations starting from March 1st, 2023, until March 20th, 2023. They announced that the first round H1B Lottery was completed on March 27th, 2023, and they informed all the employers related to the selected applications. They did not release any numbers of the total registrations or other statistics. Read more at USCIS reaches H1B 2024 cap, lottery done.

All the employers with selected applicants during the first round lottery can file for an H1B petition with USCIS from April 1st until June 30th, 2023. They have 90 days to file an H1B petition. If they do not file during that window, the selected H1B registration is considered wasted, and you cannot transfer or do anything with it. You can read the next steps after H1B Lottery.

Now that we have the background let’s dive into the details released by USCIS around H1B 2024 registrations numbers.

781K H1B Registrations Submitted for FY 2024 Season

USCIS has updated its H1B Registrations page today, indicating details about the total number of H1B Registrations submitted during the FY 2024 season. Below are the facts and insights.

H1B Registrations Statistics for FY 2024 Season

• Total Submitted: USCIS said, they received a total of 780,884 (approximately 781K) H1B Registrations for the FY 2024 season.
• Total Eligible: Of the total 781K H1B registrations submitted, the total number of eligible H1B registrations stood at 758,994 (approximately 757K).
• Why Difference: The difference of 21,890 (780,884 -758,994) between submitted vs. eligible registrations is accounted for the duplicate registrations, failed payments, and others deleted by employers before the close of the registration period
• One Employer Only H1B Applicants: Of the total eligible 757K H1B registrations, the number of H1B applicants with only one H1B registration stood at 350,103(approximately 350K). This means that all these 350,103 applicants filed H1B registration with only one employer and had only one H1B job offer.
• Multiple Employers Filed H1B Applicants: Of the total eligible 757K H1B registrations, the number of H1B applicants with multiple H1B registrations stood at 408,891(approximately 409K). This means all these 408,891 applicants filed H1B registrations with more than one H1B employer as they had multiple H1B offers.
• Selected H1B Registrations: USCIS Selected 110,791 H1B registrations from the total H1B registrations pool to reach the H1B cap of 85,000. They have picked about 25,791 (110,791-85,000) more H1B registrations than the actual H1B Cap quota to account for denials, non-filings, etc.

H1B FY 2024 Registration Selection Odds, Metrics

I am not that big of a statistician. But, let’s do some simple math to come up with some facts and find the ratio of registrations to availableH1B Visa Quota Cap:

H1B Lottery Selection Odds

• Registrations / Availability Ratio = 780,884/85,000 =9.19
• The above ratio means that for 1 H1B visa cap slot, USCIS received 9.19 H1B registrations. If we round it, USCIS got about 9 H1B registrations for one available H1B cap slot.
• The chances of selection are: 85,000/780,884 =10.89%
• The above percentage means that out of 100 H1B registrations submitted, only 11 would be selected in the H1B Lottery.

Comparison with FY 2023 Season

• If we compare H1B FY 2024 with H1B FY 2023 season, during the previous year for FY 2023, there were 483,927 H1B registrations. Now, for FY 2024, there are about 296,957 more H1B registrations filed.
• It is a 61.36% increase in the total H1B registrations submitted for FY 2024 compared to FY 2023.

Lesser H1B Lottery Selections for FY 2024

• For FY 2023, USCIS selected 127,600 H1B registrations. Compared to this year, they only selected 110,791. They have selected 16,809 lesser H1B registrations than the previous fiscal year.
• Technically they selected about 13.17% lesser number of H1B registrations than the previous year.
• USCIS’s rationale for selecting a lower number of H1B registrations for FY 2024 is for two reasons:
  • They expect a higher percentage of selected applicants in the H1B registration lottery would file an H1B petition this year than in previous years.
  • Also, they expect more H1B1 approvals for the current fiscal year. If you do not know, there is a 6,800 count allocated to the H1B1 program, which also part of the 85,000. You can read more at H1B Quota Cap – Regular vs. Masters, H1B1

USCIS has not released any data on the split of the H1B registrations by Masters quota vs. Regular quota and other metrics related to employers. In previous years, they used to release those numbers, but this year, they did not include those numbers.

H1B Registrations Filing Trend FY 2021- FY 2024

USCIS also released the complete data set related to the previous four years as part of this year’s data update. Below are the H1B registrations and lottery selections trend during the last four fiscal years.

In terms of the H1B registrations submissions & selection data released by USCIS, below is the exact table that USCIS released. The above graph is also based on the below data in the table.

You should also read H1B Historical Data from FY 2000 to FY 2024, Trends, Extra Selections for full understanding of the trends.

USCIS Guidance on multiple H1B registrations, Fraud for FY 2024

Below are some of the insights and their guidance related to multiple H1B registrations and fraud.

• Significant increase in multiple H1B registrations: USCIS said that the enormous increase in the number of multiple H1 registrations submitted by employers for the same applicant has raised some serious concerns on their end. They believe that some employers may have abused the system. In terms of numbers, last year for FY 2023, it was 165,180 and this year, it went up to 408,891. In total, about 243,711 additional multiple H1B registrations were submitted by employers. This is a 147% increase in the multiple H1B registrations submitted by employers.
• Committed to preventing abuse of the H1B Program: USCIS re-iterated that they are committed to preventing abuse and fraud committed by employers and applicants who tried to game the system and filed multiple H1B registrations without proper job offer or intent. In fact, they issued many Notice of Intent to Deny(NOID) for many who filed multiple H1B registrations during the fiscal year 2023.
• Attestation by Employers: They said that all the employers did sign under penalty of perjury(attested) that everything they submitted was true and had a genuine offer and there was nothing done to increase the lottery chances. If USCIS believes any fraud was done, they will deny such petitions, revoke the approvals that were falsely attested and then enforce federal investigation. They said that they have already denied many who tried to commit fraud in FY 2023 season and taken extensive fraud investigations related to them as well.
• Report Fraud: If you know anyone who committed fraud with H1B registrations, you can report fraud by providing more details at USCIS Tip Form.

Will there be Second Round H1B Lottery for FY 2024?

USCIS completed second round H1B Lottery for FY 2024 Season. They selected 77,600 in Second Round Lottery for FY 2024 Season.

This is probably the most asked question in the last one month or so, since the first lottery results came out for FY 2024 season. Many speculations were floating around in social media that there are going to be 700K registrations, and sadly, it came true. As per our H1B 2024 Lottery Predictions, we were expecting about 600K registrations to be filed, but we missed the mark by over 180K as this year’s numbers stood at 781K. I guess that is life and we never anticipate the fraud in our numbers.

Compared to the previous year’s selections, USCIS selected about 16,809 lesser H1B selections for FY 2024. So, this gives some speculation that there could be a second-round lottery. Also, considering the potential fraud, there could be more denials and revocations. The economy is not doing that great for tech workers too, all of these can add up and there may be a chance for second-round lottery. We will do a detailed analysis on this in a subsequent article, stay tuned.

What do you think of the H1B numbers by USCIS for FY 2024? Will there be second-round lottery? Share your thoughts in comments section below.

Reference: Check USCIS H1B Registration Page