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2026 H1B Lottery Process and Timeline

All the information you need to prepare your team for the upcoming H1B lottery.

Process and Timeline

  1. Preparation, January-February 2026: Companies should select an attorney and start working with them to prepare entries for the March lottery. This year is the first time USCIS will employ a selection system weighted in favor of applicants whose offered wage falls within the higher wage levels for their particular occupation. This is determined not by the absolute amount of the salary offered to the candidate, but by a combination of a variety of factors including the general SOC category that the job falls into, the standard minimum requirements for entry into the profession, and the physical location where the candidate will be working from. We will strategize with you to make sure your application is as well-positioned within the new weighted system as it can be.
  2. Entry, Exact dates TBD in March 2026 (likely the first 3 weeks): Companies enter their candidates in the online lottery. 
  3. Lottery selection, by March 31, 2026: USCIS will run the "regular" lottery, selecting what it thinks are enough applicants to issue all of the 65,000 H1B visas allocated for the regular lottery this year. After the regular lottery has been completed, USCIS will run a second random lottery called the "master's cap" to allocate an additional 20,000 H1Bs reserved for people with advanced degrees from US universities. USCIS will create a separate pool of all of the candidates who qualify for the master's cap and were not selected in the regular lottery, and randomly select candidates from this pool.
  4. Notification, by March 31, 2026: USCIS will notify companies which of their candidates have been selected for H1B processing.
  5. H1B application filing, from April 1 to June 30, 2026: Companies may file full H1B petitions for candidates who were selected in the lottery. (If the candidate's OPT is expiring before June 30, be sure to file the H1B petition before their OPT expires to take advantage of "cap-gap" work authorization extension through October 1!)
  6. Possible second lottery, Summer 2026: After processing the first batch of full H1B applications submitted between April and June, USCIS will assess whether they have approved enough applications to allocate all 85,000 new H1B visas for this year. If they haven't, they will run a second lottery and notify employers if any of their candidates were selected in this second round. 
  7. H1B status start, October 1, 2026: Candidates whose full H1B applications were approved may start working in H1B status.

For an overview of the fees for each step of this process, please see this article.

We would be happy to discuss your needs for the 2026 lottery! Feel free to check out our fee schedule or book a time to discuss with one of our attorneys here.