H1B Visa Process Timeline Costs Processing Time and More

Posted February 27, 2019 in Visa

The U.S. employers initiate the H-1B visa process to hire foreign workers. The H1-B filing season begins on the first working day of April while H1-B visa status is implemented from October 01 (the first working day of the new fiscal year). In other words, the successfully hired foreign workers start working for their respective employers from October 01. Having precise information about the process, including timeline, costs and processing time, is important for the employers as well as the foreign employees. The following guide shares the most comprehensive information in this direction.

H-1B Visa Process Steps

First of all, you must know that only the employers need to file H-1B visa petitions on behalf of the foreign workers they wish to hire. If you are a foreign worker meeting all eligibility conditions for H-1B status, you need to:

Step 1: Find an H-1B sponsor who should be a U.S. company or employer

Step 2: Apply for the available position

Step 3: If selected, submit all necessary documents

Step 4: Wait for the petition result

Step 5: If the petition gets approved, appear for the final interview at a U.S. consulate to get H-1B visa

If you are a U.S. employer, you need to:

Step 1: File Labor Condition Application (LCA) with the Department of Labor (DOL). The LCA serves many purposes, the important ones being:

Attesting that the hired H-1B worker would be paid according to the region’s prevailing wages.
Ensuring that hiring H-1B worker would have no negative impact on the present employees of the company.

It is necessary to file LCA at the right time because getting it certified too early would result in early expiration and filing it too late would result in denial/delay in certification.

Step 2: File H-1B petition (Form I-129) with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) showing the intention to hire a non-immigrant temporary foreign worker. It must be noted that that the petition must be filed with the nearest USCIS service center (out of the four locations at Nebraska, Vermont, Texas and California).

Step 3: Wait for selection in the lottery (which is conducted if the number of petitions exceeds the usual cap of 20,000 for U.S. Master’s quota and 65,000 for Regular (Bachelor’s) quota. If not selected, you would need to wait for the next H-1B filing season.

Step 4: If the petition is selected, wait for its processing and final decision. If approved, the foreign worker starts working from October 01. If not, the decision notice is mailed to the employer.

Optional Step: If you want, you may file the petition under premium processing to expedite the process.

H-1B Visa Cost

It must be noted that H-1B visa fees are to be paid by the employer (petitioner) and not the foreign employee (beneficiary). The fees include:

$460 as the basic filing fee
$500 as a fraud detection and prevention fee
$750 as ACWIA (American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act) fee

In addition, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 demands an additional fee of $4,000 from petitioners who have 50 or more employees out of which 50% are in a nonimmigrant status (H-1B or L).

H-1B Premium Processing Fee: The petitioner who wants to file H-1B petition under premium processing must pay the additional fee of $1,410 (recently increased from $1,225). It can be paid either by the employer or the foreign worker after mutual consent.

H-1B Timeline 2020

Based on the H-1B timeline 2019, here’s a rough estimate of dates/months H-1B processing for the fiscal year 2020 starting on October 01, 2019:

April 01 – H-1B visa application window opens
April 07 – H-1B visa application window possibly closes
After April 07 – H-1B visa lottery for random selection of petitions begins
By April-end – Receipts begin being mailed out for selected petitions
By Mid-May to May end-Premium Processing petitions start receiving decisions
Starting July-end till September – H-1B regular processing results to be out
October 01 – H-1B workers join the respective employers

It must be noted that these are only the general predictions based on the usual processing trends of every year.

H-1B Processing Time

It depends on three main factors:

USCIS Service Center Applied To: Service Centers usually take up to 4.5 months to process the petitions.
Regular/Premium Processing: The usual H-1B regular processing time is usually 4-6 months. On the other hand, the H-1B premium processing time is 15 calendar days.
Additional Evidences: There are cases when the USCIS demands additional evidences/documents from the petitioner before taking a decision. If it happens, you can expect the processing time to increase further.

If you are absolutely informed about the entire process, you can sail through it smoothly. However, consulting an immigration attorney can help you deal with all possibilities of denials/delays/mistakes throughout the H-1B visa process.