Beginning on March 1, employer-petitioners will be able to begin the H-1B cap-subject petition registration process for FY2021. Such employers must electronically register and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee per beneficiary before filing a petition for H-1B visa status for a beneficiary. If approved, the visa would become available on October 1, 2020. The registration period is from March 1 to March 20, 2020. USCIS has announced that the expected lottery will be held no later than March 31, and petitioners will be advised if they have been selected by email by April 1. After the petitioner is notified that the registration has been selected, he or she will have at least 90 days to submit a completed H-1B petition with supporting documentation.

Under the new registration process, employer-petitioners must set up a MyUSCIS portal account that an attorney can later access in order to register the H1B beneficiary. While employers can set up their account now, they cannot enter their H-1B required data until March 1. Because each registration is beneficiary-specific, basic information about the beneficiary is also required.

USCIS will not consider a cap-subject petition properly filed unless it is based on a valid registration selection for the same beneficiary and in the appropriate fiscal year. Although petitioner-employers can register multiple foreign nationals during a single online submission, duplicate registrations for the same beneficiary in the same fiscal year will be denied during the registration process. Any H1B registration that was submitted by March 20, 2020 but was not selected or denied will be kept under the 2021 H-1B registration account for the employer for fiscal year 2021 in the event that not all the H-1B visas are used up.