H-1B Visa Statistics by Country: Approvals, Cap, and Backlog

Indian-born workers received 71% of approved H-1B petitions in fiscal year 2024, and Chinese-born workers another 11.7%, according to the most recent H-1B visa statistics by country published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Out of roughly 399,400 approved petitions that year, India accounted for more than 283,000 and China about 46,700.¹ Every other country combined made up less than 18% of the total. That concentration is the single most important fact about the program, and it drives everything from lottery mechanics to green card wait times.

Top Ten Countries by Approved Petitions in FY 2024

USCIS tracks approvals by the beneficiary’s country of birth, not citizenship or current residence. An Indian-born worker who later became a Canadian citizen still counts under India. The top ten for FY 2024:¹

India: 283,397 (71.0%)
China: 46,680 (11.7%)
Philippines: 5,248 (1.3%)
Canada: 4,222 (1.1%)
South Korea: 3,983 (1.0%)
Mexico: 3,333 (less than 1%)
Taiwan: 3,099 (less than 1%)
Pakistan: 3,052 (less than 1%)
Brazil: 2,638 (less than 1%)
Nigeria: 2,273 (less than 1%)

India and China together account for nearly 83% of all approvals. The remaining eight countries in the top ten split roughly 7% among themselves, and every country outside the top ten holds a fraction of a percent. The Philippines edging into third reflects healthcare demand; Mexico and Brazil show the program draws from the Americas, just at small volumes.

Why the Total Is Far Above the 85,000 Cap

Congress set the regular H-1B cap at 65,000 visas per year, with another 20,000 reserved for beneficiaries who hold a U.S. master’s degree or higher.² Universities, nonprofit research organizations, and government research entities are cap-exempt. Their petitions don’t enter the lottery and don’t count against the 85,000 ceiling. Renewals also flow through separately. That is why total approvals reach nearly 400,000 in a year when the cap is 85,000.

When demand exceeds the cap, USCIS runs a lottery. For FY 2026 the agency received registrations for about 336,000 unique beneficiaries and selected roughly 119,000, a selection rate of about 35%. That is higher than in earlier years because USCIS moved to a beneficiary-centric selection system starting with FY 2025. Under the previous rules a single worker could be registered by multiple employers, and some sponsors filed duplicate registrations to improve their odds. Tying each entry to a unique person cut the average number of registrations per beneficiary from 1.06 to 1.01.³

Starting with the FY 2027 cap season, USCIS will add a weighted process that favors higher-wage positions, ranking registrations by wage level relative to the occupation and geographic area.³ Countries whose H-1B workers cluster at lower wage levels could see their share dip; countries whose workers fill more senior roles could hold steady or grow.

How the Country Mix Maps to Industries

Computer-related occupations captured 63.9% of approvals in FY 2024. Architecture, engineering, and surveying came next at 10.2%, followed by education at 6.0%, administrative specializations at 5.4%, and medicine and health at 4.2%.¹

Because Indian-born workers make up 71% of all approvals and the technology sector absorbs nearly two-thirds of the program, India’s footprint in software development, systems analysis, and IT consulting is enormous. Beneficiaries from China and Taiwan spread more evenly across engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences. Workers from the Philippines and Canada appear more often in healthcare and education. Smaller categories like math and physical sciences (2.8%), life sciences (1.9%), and management (1.7%) draw from a wider spread of countries and involve more cap-exempt employers, so lottery pressure shapes them less.¹

How the Distribution Has Shifted Over the Past Decade

India’s share has grown steadily. From 2007 to 2017, Indian nationals accounted for about 64% of petitions filed.⁴ By FY 2023 that figure had climbed to 72.3%, settling at 71% in FY 2024.¹ The growth reflects the expansion of India’s IT services industry and deep recruitment pipelines between Indian universities and American tech employers.

China’s share has stayed relatively flat, hovering between roughly 9% and 12% over the same span.⁴ The 11.7% for FY 2024 sits in that historical range. Several European nations that once held somewhat larger slices have seen their relative share shrink as total volume grew and India captured most of that growth. The Philippines and Nigeria have moved into or solidified positions in the top ten more recently, reflecting shifts in global labor supply and employer demand in healthcare and professional services.

The Green Card Backlog by Country

This is where country-of-birth statistics become personally consequential. Federal law caps the number of employment-based green cards available to natives of any single country at 7% of the total issued each year.⁵ India generates over 70% of H-1B approvals but can receive no more than 7% of employment-based green cards. The resulting backlog is staggering. Over one million Indian nationals are estimated to be waiting in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories as of early 2026, with current processing dates reaching back to petitions filed in 2013. Wait times exceed 12 years, and some projections run far longer.

Chinese-born workers face a similar problem at a smaller scale. EB-2 and EB-3 waits for Chinese nationals still stretch years beyond what workers from most other countries experience. Nationals from countries outside the top few, such as Canada or Brazil, typically face little or no backlog because their demand doesn’t reach the 7% ceiling.

The practical effect: an H-1B worker from India with identical qualifications, job title, and salary to one from Canada may wait decades longer for permanent residency. During that wait, the worker must maintain valid H-1B status through employer sponsorship, which limits job mobility. Several legislative proposals have attempted to eliminate or raise the per-country cap, but none have passed as of 2026.

What USCIS Does Not Publish by Country

USCIS reports the number of approved petitions by country of birth but does not break down approval and denial rates by country in its annual congressional reports. The FY 2024 Characteristics report gives approved counts per country but not how many were filed or denied from each.¹ Country-specific approval percentages published elsewhere are typically derived from FOIA data or third-party estimates rather than from official published tables. Program-wide approval rates have generally been high in recent years, with requests for additional evidence issued on roughly 10% of petitions, though those rates aren’t broken out by country either.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers Fiscal Year 2024
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Cap Season
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Electronic Registration Process
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Trend of H-1B Petitions FY 2007 Through 2017
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1152 – Numerical Limitations on Individual Foreign States