We hope all is well. On Saturday afternoon, January 4, 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released its lottery results for H-2B applications with April 1, 2024 start dates. As expected, the DOL received more applications than ever before, which creates the likelihood of significant processing backlogs like we have seen in past years.
We have been busy emailing all of our wonderful summer-season clients with their lottery results, as well as information about what their results mean in terms of filing for out-of-country workers through the initial cap and the Supplemental Cap (cap relief). We also provided a helpful chart to help them understand when they can expect their workers to be able to start work based on their lottery assignments. Finally, Pabian Law is hosting a client-only webinar today to discuss the lottery and paths forward for summer-season clients to have a successful 2025 H-2B visa season.
As we always tell clients, there are almost always solutions for challenges caused by the numerical cap and lottery. Planning, understanding historical and current data, and working together to work towards organizations’ goals are integral to H-2B visa success.
We are sending this Client Alert to help assist in better understanding the H-2B visa cap, the random lottery for April 1st start dates, and to provide helpful trends and statistics surrounding these issues.
Background
There are 66,000 total new H-2B visas available each year (33,000 for winter-season organizations and 33,000 for summer-season organizations). April 1st is the beginning of the second half of the government’s 2024 fiscal year, which is the first start date that can be requested by summer-season H-2B employers. January 1st (90 days before April 1st) marks the opening of the DOL’s H-2B filing window for summer-season employers with April 1st start dates. Because significantly more than 33,000 requests are filed each year by April 1st employers, the DOL conducts a lottery and assign the first 33,000 requests to Group A and the remainder to Group B, C, and so on (20,000 in each subsequent group).
*Note: the 66,000 cap is split into two separate “half-year” caps of 33,000. This announcement relates to the second half of the FY2024 fiscal year, which is for employers with start dates between April 1, 2025 and September 30, 2025 (i.e., “summer-season” organizations). This Client Alert does not have any impact on winter-season organizations.
What the Results Mean
The lottery sets an application’s “place in line” in the DOL processing queue. The DOL will process “Group A” assignments first and, once all Group A cases are completed, they will move on to Group B, and they will repeat this process until they have completed initial processing on all April 1st applications submitted in the lottery period. However, the DOL lottery was not for the visas themselves – just a place in line. Final visa approvals are issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and employers are able to file those final petitions once they are through DOL processing.
Historically, Group A and about 50% of Group B has a chance of filing USCIS petitions before the cap is reached. This means that those groups have a chance at receiving approval for new petitions for out-of-country H-2B candidates. Employers with later lottery group assignments must rely on recruiting “in-country” workers (i.e., workers who are transferring between H-2B employers within the U.S.), as these workers are “cap-exempt.” There is also the possibility of taking advantage of supplemental visa (i.e., cap relief) – however, even the Supplemental Cap can run out of visas and filing through it comes with compliance mandates and risks.
Below, please find some statistics surrounding this year’s lottery and options to file for out-of-country workers. Please remember, workers who are already in the United States on H-2B visas (in-country extensions/transfers) are exempt from the cap.
We will be in touch with our clients as soon as we receive word from the U.S. Department of Labor on their filed applications.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.
Thank you,
Keith Pabian and the Pabian Law Team