Because our office is headquartered in Miami, which has one of the country’s largest concentration of foreign workers, we start to get a lot of calls this time of year from folks wanting to get an H1B visa.
The timing of these calls is no coincidence.
Every year on April 1 the U.S. government starts accepting petitions for the available 65,000 regular cap H1B visas and 20,000 master’s cap H-1B visas.
In addition, the U.S. typically sets aside 6,800 visas for Singapore and Chile Free Trade agreement filings.
The H1Bvisa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations for up to six years.
Although H1B petitions are filed in April of 2013, they are counted towards the 2014 H1B2 visa fiscal year, which begins on October 1.
Its important that anyone filing an H1B petition file it as soon as they can starting on April 1, 2013 before the cap is reached.
To give you some perspective of how fast the cap is reached, last year, the H1B Visa 2013 cap was reached on June 11, 2012.
This year, the cap is expected to be reached even sooner–possibly as early as May 2013.
If possible, it is always strongly recommended to be in a position to submit your H1B visa application on April 1.