US reaches H-1B visa cap for FY24

Washington, Dec 15 (IANS) The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it has received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the congressionally-mandated cap for the most-coveted H-1B visa for the fiscal year 2024.

This includes the 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap as well as the 20,000 H-1B visa US advanced degree exemption, commonly referred to as the master’s cap.

The non-immigrant work visa allows US employers to hire foreign workers with specialised skills to work in the country for a specific period of time.

In a statement on Wednesday, the USCIS said will send notices to registrants who were not selected for the visa programme, through their online accounts over the next few days.

However, the the federal agency said will continue to accept and process petitions exempt from the cap.

"Petitions filed for current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap, and who still retain their cap number, are exempt from the FY 2024 H-1B cap," the USCIS said.

An estimated 75 per cent of the H-1B visa granted in a year are known to go to workers from India, hired by some of the largest US tech giant such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook as well as IT services behemoths like Infosys, TCS and Wipro.