How to Check H-1B Lottery Results and Petition Status

To check H-1B lottery results, the employer or attorney who submitted the electronic registration logs into the USCIS online account used for filing and opens the dashboard listing each beneficiary. Beneficiaries cannot see the result directly, so if you are the prospective employee, you have to ask your sponsoring employer or their lawyer. Once a petition is filed after selection, tracking shifts to a different tool: the public Case Status Online page, which anyone with the 13-character receipt number can use.¹

Who Can Actually See the Result

H-1B registrations are submitted through a USCIS online account set up as an Organization/Company account. Only the employer (the “registrant”) or their attorney has login credentials for that account. USCIS notifies registrants and their attorneys of selections through the account itself. There is no separate notification sent to the beneficiary, and no way for a beneficiary to log in and look.¹

If you are the beneficiary, this means your only reliable channel is your sponsoring employer’s HR contact or immigration counsel. If you want to verify what they tell you, ask them to show you the status line for your registration in the portal, and confirm that your name and passport information on the registration match your actual documents. An error there can invalidate the registration entirely.

What Each Registration Status Means

Inside the USCIS account, each registration carries a status label. That label is the lottery result. The possibilities are:¹

Submitted. The registration was properly entered and is eligible for selection. After the initial round, a “Submitted” registration stays in the pool for any additional selection rounds USCIS runs later in the fiscal year.
Selected. The registration was chosen. The employer may now file a cap-subject H-1B petition for this beneficiary.
Not Selected. The registration was not picked. This is final for the fiscal year in question.
Denied. The registration was rejected because the passport or travel document information was invalid, or because the registrant filed duplicate registrations for the same beneficiary. Duplicates invalidate all of that registrant’s registrations for that beneficiary.
Invalidated – Failed Payment. The registration was submitted but the payment could not be processed.
Deleted. The registration was removed and is no longer eligible for selection.

Two of these get misread often. “Submitted” after the initial lottery is not a rejection; it means you could still be picked in a later round. “Not Selected,” on the other hand, closes the door for that fiscal year.

When Results Post

For the FY 2027 cap, covering employment starting October 1, 2026, the registration window opened at noon Eastern on March 4, 2026, and closed at noon Eastern on March 19, 2026. Each entry carried a non-refundable $215 registration fee. USCIS intends to notify registrants of selection results by March 31.¹

If the initial round doesn’t produce enough registrations to fill the cap (65,000 regular plus 20,000 for U.S. advanced-degree holders), USCIS runs additional selection rounds later in the fiscal year, drawing from registrations still in “Submitted” status.² So a “Submitted” label in April can become “Selected” in July or August.

After a Selected Result

A “Selected” status is permission to file, not the visa itself. The employer has a 90-day window to file the formal H-1B petition (Form I-129). For the FY 2027 cycle, the earliest filing date is April 1, 2026. A petition filed after the 90-day window closes will be rejected as untimely.¹

Once USCIS receipts the petition, tracking moves out of the registration portal. USCIS issues a Form I-797C, Notice of Action, that carries a 13-character receipt number: three letters followed by ten digits.³ From that point on, the receipt number is the key. Ask your employer for a copy of the I-797C or at least the receipt number itself.

Tracking the Petition With Your Receipt Number

Enter the receipt number into the USCIS Case Status Online tool. It’s a public page, so both employer and beneficiary can use it, and it works from a phone as well as a computer.⁴⁵ The page shows the most recent action taken on the case.

To avoid checking manually, you can create a personal USCIS online account and add the receipt number; the system will email you when the status changes.⁵

Common statuses you’ll see include Case Was Received, Request for Evidence Was Sent, Case Was Approved, and Case Was Denied. If the employer paid the premium processing fee by filing Form I-907, USCIS commits to taking action (an approval, denial, RFE, or notice of intent to deny) within 15 business days, and refunds the fee if it misses that window.⁶ Premium processing does not change where you check status; it just makes updates arrive much faster.

Cap-Gap Status for F-1 Students

If you are on F-1 OPT and your employer filed a timely, cap-subject H-1B petition requesting a change of status while your F-1 status was still valid (including during the 60-day grace period after OPT ends), the cap-gap regulations automatically extend your F-1 status to bridge to October 1.⁷ One catch: if you were already in the 60-day grace period when the petition was filed, you get the status extension but not the work authorization, because you weren’t work-authorized at the moment of filing.

To confirm the extension has been applied, ask your designated school official (DSO) to check your SEVIS record. When cap-gap is in place, your Student Information page in SEVIS displays a cap-gap indicator and a related comment appears on page 2 of your Form I-20.⁸ If SEVIS hasn’t updated after the petition was receipted, the DSO can request a manual data fix through the SEVP Response Center. The extension ends automatically if the H-1B petition is denied, withdrawn, revoked, or rejected.

What Case Status Online Will Not Show You

If your petition is approved and you apply for the visa stamp at a U.S. consulate abroad, the case may go into administrative processing, meaning the consular officer needs additional information before deciding whether to issue the visa.⁹ That step happens at the State Department, not USCIS. It will not appear in the Case Status Online tool. Check the visa application through the State Department’s Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) instead. There is no fixed timeline for administrative processing, and the State Department recommends applying well ahead of any planned travel.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Electronic Registration Process
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Reaches Fiscal Year 2026 H-1B Cap
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Receipt Number
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Case Status Online – Case Status Search
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Checking Your Case Status Online
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. How Do I Request Premium Processing
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Extension of Post Completion Optional Practical Training (OPT) and F-1 Status for Eligible Students under the H-1B Cap-Gap Regulations
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Study in the States. F-1 Cap Gap Extension
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U.S. Department of State. Administrative Processing Information