H1B Lottery

How to Find Out if You’ve Been Selected in the H1B Lottery

What happens in the H1B visa lottery?

The H1B VISA LOTTERY is among the biggest barriers to visa approval for H1B applicants. Visit the Techfetch H1B website, where you can get all useful H1B visa Lottery selection-related tips, immigration-related news, and up-to-date information regarding H1B visas. All applicants are treated the same in the lottery, even though H1B visa applicants are evaluated based on their qualifications, training, and professional experience.

An overall advanced degree application cap is imposed on the lottery drawing from the pool of accepted H1B applicants. What your odds are, how to check your H1B lottery results, and how the lottery works are covered in the following article.

Although the United States Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services typically accepts more than 200,000 H1B visa applications a year, only 65,000 of those visas are awarded through a lottery. For the advanced degree waiver lottery, which awards visas to candidates with Masters's and Ph.D. grades, an additional 20,000 applications are submitted.

The process for the H1B visa lottery is briefly described here. The advanced degree petition lottery is chosen first. A computer algorithm selects 20,000 applications randomly from the entire pool of advanced degree applications. Advanced degree applications that were not chosen in the initial pool are then moved to the general visa cap pool, where they will have another chance to be chosen.

Then 65,000 applications are chosen through the general visa cap lottery. An additional 6,500 H1B visas have been reserved for citizens of Singapore and Chile. There is a chance of selection for everyone who enters the general H1B visa lottery.

Some requests are excluded from the lottery and are subject to the cap. Only the following petitions are exempt from the cap:

  • Previous selections in the visa lottery for petitions

  • Visa extensions for H1B visa petitions that have been previously approved

  • Alterations to employment information (location, required experience, duties)

  • Transfer Request Forms to a New Employer

  • Applications for more positions in companies

  • Ineligible petitions for H1B visas are returned to the applicant along with filing fees.

How to know the results of H1B lottery?

  • Determine if USCIS has processed your paycheck.

  • Try to find your receipt number.

  • Check Form I-797 Usage and H1B Tracker for You

  • Below is a more detailed explanation of each of these.

Check SEVIS

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System can be used by nonimmigrant students who applied under the advanced degree cutoff to determine eligibility (SEVIS). This is the fastest way to find out if you were selected because this record is updated as soon as a student is selected after the 2019 H1B lottery results date.

Determine if USCIS has processed your paycheck.

Applicants must pay the H1B application fees in the form of a check. You can know that you were chosen in the lottery if the USCIS pays the check because all petitions that are not chosen have their money refunded.

Try to find your receipt number.

Every applicant who wins the H1B lottery receives a 13-digit receipt number, which is mailed to the H1B sponsor as soon as the petition is selected. When your employer receives this number, they will know that you were chosen.

Examine your I-797 form.

Form I-797, the formal document that proves H1B status, is sent to lottery winners by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Employ an H1B tracker

An H1B tracker is available at Trackitt.com and allows you to track the progress of your application and updates you if you are chosen in the lottery.

H1B visa lottery dates 2022

Every candidate for an H1B visa must be aware of certain deadlines and milestones as they apply to all immigration petitions. Keep reading to find out more about those dates and the latest H1B lottery information.

When will USCIS start accepting H1B visa applications in 2022?

USCIS said on March 19 that it would begin accepting H1B petitions on April 1, 2021. USCIS generally begins receiving H1B applications six months before the start of the fiscal year, which in 2021 begins on October 1.

How long will USCIS continue to accept H1B petitions for 2022?

For the 2022 H1B lottery, USCIS will receive H1B petitions through June 30, 2021.

When will the H1B Lottery take place for 2022?

The H1B lottery is usually held in the second week of April each year.

When will H1B lottery results for 2022 be announced?

The H1B 2022 lottery results will not be released on any given day. Results maybe available from April through August. In a notice published in 2019, USCIS indicated that all lottery applications that have not been chosen would be notified before August 29.

H1B Lottery Selection Possibilities

It is difficult to determine the precise odds of being selected in the H1B lottery as USCIS does not disclose the number of advanced degree waivers (as some of those waivers will roll over to the general visa lottery after 20,000 are selected). However, USCIS makes the total number of applications available so that we can estimate our chances of being eligible for the overall visa quota.

With 65,000 H1B visas available for the cap and 170,098 H1B applications granted in 2018–19, there is a 38 percent chance of being chosen. However, the probability of being chosen will be significantly lower than this because 6,500 visas are set aside for Chileans and Singaporeans.

Also, because they participate in both lotteries, people with advanced degree exemptions have a better chance of being selected. Visit the Techfetch H1B website for more information on H1B lottery.