US H-1B Visa lottery 2026: Record low entries, major reforms, and key takeaways

The FY 2026 H-1B visa lottery witnessed a significant decrease in registrations. According to reports, the total number of applicants was approximately 442,000, roughly the same as FY 2024 (446,000). However, the number of valid registrations has already declined significantly in recent years, dropping from 758,994 in FY 2024 to 470,342 in FY 2025—a decrease of 38.6%.
For FY 2026, USCIS has continued its beneficiary-centric selection procedure, introduced in FY 2025 to address concerns about the lottery system’s integrity. This reform ensures each unique beneficiary is entered into the selection process only once, regardless of how many registrations are submitted on their behalf. By eliminating multiple entries per individual, the change aims to enhance fairness and reduce the potential for fraud.
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Selection process: For FY 2026, the selection rate rose to nearly 40%, up from approximately 30% in previous years, due to the beneficiary-focused process and a reduction in total registrations.
Higher fees: To cover administrative costs and deter frivolous submissions, USCIS has significantly increased the H-1B registration fee by 2050%, raising it from $10 to $215 per beneficiary.

Steps for selected beneficiaries: Employers with selected beneficiaries have been notified and can begin filing H-1B cap-subject petitions starting April 1, 2025. The filing period will last at least 90 days, during which petitioners must submit the necessary documentation to establish eligibility.
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The H-1B visa program, intended to allow US employers to temporarily hire foreign professionals for specialised roles, has experienced significant variations in denial rates over the past decade. These fluctuations have been shaped by changing immigration policies, administrative adjustments, and court rulings.
The denial rates for new H-1B petitions were comparatively constant from Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 to FY 2017: 4% in FY 2015, 6% in FY 2017, and 7% in FY 2017. The 15% uptick in denials in FY 2018 was primarily driven by the Trump administration’s stricter immigration rules, such as tightening the criteria for “specialty occupations” and curbing third-party placements of H-1B workers.
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The denial rate for initial employment petitions saw a slight increase from 2.2% in FY 2022 to 3.5% in FY 2023. Approximately two-thirds of this uptick was linked to medium-sized companies, which submitted between 10 and 100 applications and were the primary contributors to the increase. In contrast, larger firms employing immigration counsel faced nearly zero denials, a sharp drop from the roughly 25% denial rate seen in 2018.

The trend persisted into FY 2024, when the initial employment petition denial rate was 2.5%. Interestingly, the denial rate for continuing employment petitions (extensions for current employees) fell to 1.8% in FY 2024 from 12% in FY 2018 and FY 2019, marking a historic low. This improvement is attributed to policy changes and a more predictable approval process for employers. The shift also reflects a broader effort to streamline immigration processes.
If records and trends are to go by, employer size and legal representation have significantly influenced denial rates. It has been witnessed that employers submitting over 101 initial employment applications in FY 2023 saw a denial rate of 1.2%, while on the other hand, those filing one application faced a 4.7% denial rate. Larger employers typically have well-established internal processes and legal expertise, leading to more precise applications and lower denial rates. This highlights the importance of scale and legal preparedness in understanding the complexities of the application process.
The impact of the program is demonstrated by the distribution of accepted H-1B petitions across sectors. According to the data, the scientific and technological services accounted for approximately 51.7% of all authorised initial employment petitions in FY 2023. Universities and other educational services made up 14.3% of the total, with Stanford University earning the most approvals (307) of any US university. The manufacturing and healthcare sectors also witnessed substantial approvals, underscoring the program's crucial role in staffing essential industries.