Immigration lawyers predict that the total number of H-1B cap registrations for FY 2027 will further drop to around 200k as many companies stayed away from registering for H-1B petitions because of the $100,000 fee. The wage-based selection process, which is being implemented for the first time this year, will impact the selection but not the number of registrations so much, immigration attorneys Rahul Reddy and Emily Neumann predicted in their weekly visa update, pegging the number to be around 200k to 250k.
In the last three years, the number of total registrations fell sharply: 780, 884 in 2024; 479, 943 in 2025; 358,737 in 2026. The USCIS has not disclosed the exact number of registrations it received.
