H1B Visa Selected in Lottery Next Steps

I hope you are finding my H-1B lottery receipt updates helpful to you while you wait with bated breath to find out whether yours was selected or not. Congrats if you are one of the lucky ones! If you haven’t heard the good news on your case yet, keep your hopes up, it isn’t over!

H1b 2020 Tracker

So, now that many got receipts, I’m starting to get questions about when petitions might start to be approved.

Next Steps:

  • If your petition was filed in premium processing and there is no Request for Evidence, it should be approved by May 31st at the latest (based on the May 16th official start date for premium processing announced previously by USCIS). Approvals can start before this, last year we got our first approval on April 27th.
  • If your petition was filed in premium processing and there is an RFE, the processing time will depend on how quickly the requested evidence is submitted back to USCIS. Once they receive the response to the RFE, the 15 day premium processing clock starts over. So, for example, if your response is received by USCIS on June 15th, you should get the result by June 30th.
  • If your petition was filed in regular processing, your employer can still upgrade to premium processing now to get a faster result.
  • If your petition will continue in regular processing and there is no RFE issued, most applicants can expect to hear back from USCIS by August. This is just based on our experience in previous years, there is no set timeframe from USCIS. In general, they do try to complete all the cases by September 30th, at least for masters cap applicants because they know that the cap gap OPT extension ends on September 30th.
  • If an RFE is issued and your petition is in regular processing, it can take up to 60 days to get the result after the response to the RFE is received by USCIS. So, it is entirely possible that a petition may continue to be pending well into November and even December (last year we had our last case approved in March). Again, this is mainly dependent on how quickly the RFE is responded to. The petition can still be upgraded to premium processing after the RFE response is received by USCIS.)

H1B Visa Alternatives – What can someone do if not selected in the H1B lottery?

Source : http://j.mp/1SfWOMB

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