FY 2010 H-1B Cap Resource Page
The FY 2010 (Oct 1, 2009 - Sep 30, 2010) "H-1B Petition Season" began on April 1, 2009.
FY 2010 H-1B Cap Reached
USCIS announced:
As of December 21, 2009, USCIS has received sufficient petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY2010. USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. USCIS will reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY2010 that are received after December 21, 2009 USCIS will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all petitions that are subject to the cap and were received on December 21, 2009.
Brief Background on the H-1B Cap
The annual supply of H-1B numbers is limited by a statutory cap, and when this cap is reached, no H-1B petitions will be approved until the next fiscal year's filing season begins, unless the petition is filed by a cap-exempt employer, or unless the H-1B beneficiary is otherwise exempt from being counted against the cap for that fiscal year. Since the earliest a petitioner can file an H-1B petition is six months before the requested start date, April 1 begins this filing season each year.
USCIS notes that, "The current annual cap on the H-1B category is 65,000. Not all H-1B nonimmigrants are subject to this annual cap. Please note that up to 6,800 visas may be set aside from the cap of 65,000 during each fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool are made available for H-1B use for the next fiscal year."
There is also a statutory exemption from the cap for the first 20,000 beneficiaries who have earned a master's degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education. Petitions for such individuals that are filed after the 20,000 exemptions are granted will be counted against the cap.
In prior years, the H-1B cap was reached within the first few days of the filing season. For FY 2010 numbers, the cap was reached as of December 21, 2009.
