U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced that it will be implementing the new registration process for the upcoming H-1B lottery. Employers seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions for the fiscal year 2021 cap, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption, must first electronically register and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee.

Under this new process, employers seeking H-1B workers subject to the cap, or their authorized representatives, will complete a registration process that requires only basic information about their company and each requested worker. USCIS will open an initial registration period from March 1 through March 20, 2020. The H-1B random selection process, if needed, will then be run on those electronic registrations. Only those with selected registrations will be eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions.

The agency may determine it is necessary to continue accepting registrations, or open an additional registration period, if it does not receive enough registrations and subsequent petitions projected to reach the numerical allocations. If a sufficient number of registrations are received, USCIS will randomly select the number of registrations projected as needed to reach the H-1B numerical allocations after the initial registration period closes and no later than March 31, 2020. Prospective petitioners with selected registrations will be eligible to file a cap-subject petition only for the alien named in the registration. Once the H-1B registration system has been implemented, and when registration is required, the agency will not consider a cap-subject petition properly filed unless it is based on a valid registration selection for the same beneficiary, and the appropriate fiscal year. Additionally, although petitioners can register multiple beneficiaries during a single online submission, duplicate registrations for the same beneficiary in the same fiscal year will be discarded.

USCIS will post step-by-step instructions informing registrants how to complete the registration process on its website along with key dates and timelines as the initial registration period nears.

~ImmigrationGirl

https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-announces-implementation-h-1b-electronic-registration-process-fiscal-year-2021-cap-season

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