USCIS announced that it completed the lottery for the new fiscal year’s H-1B cap cases. The agency also released the final (approximate) count of cap-eligible H-1B cases filed for FY2017; a new record of 236,000 cases were filed. This is an increase of approximately 3,000 petitions (1.3%) over the total number of filings last year. 

On April 9, USCIS “used a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery” to select the petitions that will be considered. The agency first ran the advanced degree lottery first, and all unselected advanced degree petitions were then included in the general cap lottery.

Our practice has begun to receive receipt notices for H-1B cap petitions. As in previous years we expect these to trickle in over the course of the next 4-6 weeks.