NEW YORK (TIP): U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the initial registration period for the fiscal year 2023 H-1B cap will open at 12 p.m. EST on March 1 and extend to 12 p.m. EST on March 17, 2023. During this period, prospective petitioners and representatives will be able to complete and submit their registrations using the USCIS online H-1B registration system.

Prospective H-1B cap-subject petitioners or their representatives are required to use a myUSCIS online account to register each beneficiary for the selection process and pay the associated $10 H-1B registration fee for each registration. Prospective petitioners submitting their own registrations (i.e., U.S. employers and U.S. agents) will use a “registrant” account. Registrants will be able to create new accounts beginning at 12 p.m. ET on Feb. 21. Of note, the USCIS confirmation number assigned to each registrant is used solely to track registrations and cannot be used to track the case status in Case Status Online.

Moreover, representatives may add clients to their accounts at any time, but both representatives and registrants must wait until March 1 to enter beneficiary information and submit the registration with the $10 fee. Through the account, prospective petitioners will be able to prepare, edit, and store draft registrations prior to final payment and submission of each registration.

After the registration period is completed, USCIS will begin the H-1B cap selection process. Petitioners will be notified of the selected registrants via selection notifications sent to their my USCIS online accounts through March 31. An H-1B cap-subject petition, including a petition for a beneficiary who is eligible for the advanced degree exemption, may only be filed by a petitioner whose registration for the beneficiary named in the H-1B petition was selected in the H-1B registration process.