Current regulations provide for 65,000 H1B Visas to be made available for fiscal year 2010. Fiscal year 2010 or FY2010 covers the period of October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010. There are exceptions such as the 20,000 visas reserved for Master’s degree holders but the majority of applicants will fall under the general 65,000 cap.
FY2010 has been much different than the past several years where a flood of applications were made in the initial filing period and every visa was allocated just weeks into the filing season. As of this posting, there are still several thousand H1B visas available. On November 27, 2009, the USCIS announced that 58,900 H1B have been filed, leaving just over 6,000 available. From October 25 to November 27, 6,100 applications were filed so if filings remain steady, we can expect the H1B cap to be met by the end of the year.
If you intend to file a H1B cap subject application, we recommend filing as soon as possible or you may have to wait until April 1, 2010 to file a FY2011 application.