H-1B Statistics: Approvals, Wages, and Lottery Odds

H-1B statistics show a program running well beyond its statutory supply: 85,000 new visas are available each year, employers submitted 336,153 unique beneficiary registrations for the FY 2026 cycle, roughly 35 percent of registrants were selected, and more than 97 percent of the petitions that reach adjudication are approved. The typical beneficiary earns a median $120,000 a year, works in a computer-related field, was born in India, and is employed in California, Texas, New York, Washington, or New Jersey.

The Cap and How Many Register for It

Federal law caps new H-1B visas at 65,000 a year, plus 20,000 reserved for workers holding a U.S. master’s degree or higher.¹ That 85,000 combined figure is the entire annual supply for cap-subject employers. Small carve-outs inside the 65,000 regular cap go to nationals of Chile (1,400) and Singapore (5,400) under free-trade agreements, with unused numbers rolling back into the general pool.

Demand dwarfs supply. For FY 2024, USCIS received 780,884 registrations against those same 85,000 slots.² A move to beneficiary-centric selection, which eliminated duplicate registrations for the same person filed by multiple employers, cut the FY 2026 pool to 336,153 unique beneficiaries. Employers pay a $215 registration fee per beneficiary during the spring window, up from $10 before the FY 2026 season.

One boundary worth flagging on the cap numbers: workers hired by universities, nonprofit research organizations, government research organizations, and nonprofits affiliated with higher education are exempt from the numerical limit entirely and do not enter the lottery.³ Tens of thousands of additional H-1B workers enter the workforce through this route each year on top of the 85,000 headline number.

Lottery Selection Odds

For FY 2026, USCIS selected 118,660 registrations out of 336,153 unique beneficiaries. That works out to about a 35 percent selection rate, up from roughly 29 percent in FY 2025. The rise reflects the switch to beneficiary-centric selection rather than any expansion of the cap; the same number of slots is now being drawn from a much smaller pool because a single worker can no longer be entered multiple times.

Petition Approval and Denial Rates

Selection is not the same as approval. Once an employer’s registration is picked, the employer files a full Form I-129 petition with supporting documentation. Those petitions clear at high rates. In FY 2025, USCIS denied 2.8 percent of initial-employment petitions and 1.9 percent of continuing-employment petitions (extensions and transfers), for overall approval above 97 percent. FY 2024 denial rates were similar: 2.5 percent initial and 1.8 percent continuing. Both years mark a clear shift from the roughly 2017 to 2020 stretch, when scrutiny was tighter and denials ran much higher.

Not every petition is decided on the first read. USCIS issued a Request for Evidence on 8 percent of all completed petitions in FY 2024, with the rate concentrated on initial-employment filings (13 percent) versus continuing employment (6 percent).⁴ Most employers who respond with adequate evidence still get an approval; the RFE mostly adds weeks or months.

Who Sponsors the Most Workers

A small number of large employers account for a big slice of the program. Amazon led all sponsors in FY 2025 with 4,644 approved petitions for initial employment, followed by Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Google. Once continuing employment is folded in, Amazon topped the combined list at 14,532 approved petitions, with Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google each securing thousands more. Anyone can search approved petition counts by company, location, and fiscal year through the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub.⁵

IT consulting and outsourcing firms remain prominent, though their share has shifted over the past decade. Firms where H-1B workers make up 15 percent or more of the workforce (for companies with 51 or more employees) are classified as “H-1B dependent” and take on extra recruiting and non-displacement obligations.

What H-1B Workers Do

Computer-related occupations accounted for 64 percent of approved beneficiaries in FY 2024.⁴ Under current BLS coding, the most common job titles are Software Developers (15-1252) and Computer Systems Analysts (15-1211). The remaining share, more than a third of the program, covers engineering, architecture, education, and healthcare. University faculty and researchers appear in fields from biomedical science to economics, and physicians in underserved areas, physical therapists, and accountants show up steadily in the data.

Where They Come From

India accounts for roughly 74 percent of H-1B petitions, with mainland China second at about 12 percent. No other country is close. The concentration reflects the size of the Indian engineering and IT talent pool feeding into U.S. employer demand. It also produces a downstream effect: per-country limits on employment-based green cards leave Indian-born H-1B holders facing green card waits of a decade or more, which keeps them renewing H-1B status far longer than workers born elsewhere.

Where They Work

California leads all states by a wide margin, followed by Texas, New York, Washington, and New Jersey. Those five states together account for a substantial majority of all Labor Condition Applications filed for H-1B positions.⁵ The heaviest metro concentrations sit in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City, Dallas, and the northern New Jersey corridor.

The pattern is drifting. Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona have picked up H-1B activity as companies expand or relocate to lower-cost regions, tracking the broader domestic movement of tech and professional services jobs toward Sun Belt metros.

What They Earn

Median annual compensation for all approved H-1B beneficiaries reached $120,000 in FY 2024, up from $118,000 in FY 2022 and FY 2023.⁴ Workers in computer occupations run above that overall median.⁶

Every H-1B employer certifies through the Labor Condition Application that the worker will be paid at least the prevailing wage for the occupation in the specific geographic area.⁷ The Department of Labor sorts positions into four wage tiers based on experience and complexity: Level 1 (Entry), Level 2 (Qualified), Level 3 (Experienced), and Level 4 (Fully Competent). A proposed rule published in March 2026 would raise the prevailing wage floors across all four levels.⁸

How Long They Stay

An H-1B worker is initially admitted for up to three years, and one three-year extension brings the standard maximum to six years.¹ After that, a worker is generally expected to leave the country for a year before becoming eligible again.

The green card backlog changes the picture. Under the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act, a worker whose employer filed a labor certification or Form I-140 at least 365 days before the six-year limit can receive one-year extensions until the green card process concludes. A worker with an approved I-140 who cannot file for permanent residence because the country’s visa allocation is oversubscribed (a situation that overwhelmingly affects Indian-born workers) can receive three-year extensions.⁹ Tens of thousands of H-1B holders sit in the program well past the six-year mark, renewing in increments while their green card cases work through the queue.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1184 – Admission of Nonimmigrants
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Electronic Registration Process
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Specialty Occupations
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report to Congress
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Employer Data Hub
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report to Congress
7
eCFR. 20 CFR 655.731 – What Is the First LCA Requirement, Regarding Wages
8
Federal Register. Improving Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Foreign Nationals in the United States
9
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Public Law 106-313 – American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000