For H-1B visas, employers have been hoping there will be another round of selections for FY 2023, but that is not on the horizon.

USCIS has been sending non-selection notices to registrants’ online accounts. USCIS can only send non-selection notices once it has determined that enough petitions for the regular cap and the advanced degree exemption have been received.

Properly submitted registrations that did not make it will show as “Not Selected” in their accounts. Others may still show as “Submitted” but it is likely that those too will start to show as “Not Selected” in the days to come as the USCIS completes its process.

Last year, USCIS received 308,613 registrations and had three rounds of selections resulting in 131,970 selected petitions to meet the limit of 85,000. In last year’s first round, only 87,000 registrations were selected. This year, USCIS received 483,927 registrations and selected 127,000 petitions in the first round to meet the 85,000 total.

USCIS calculates the number of cases it will select based on historical data regarding the number of petitions that have been filed post-selection and the number of denials forecast. Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic was a big unknown. Now, as was predicted, USCIS seems to have a better grip on the data.