The Department of Homeland Security has modified the regulations that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will use to select H-1B registrations for the FY 2027 cap season petitions, and they will be published in the Federal Register on December 29, 2025.
The H-1B lottery system will be terminated and replaced by the new wage-based selection process on February 27, 2026. Therefore, for the FY 2027 H-1B cap registration season, the selection of beneficiaries will be determined under the new wage-based selection process.
New Wage-Based Selection Process – How it works
There will be a four-level wage system for H-1B positions, based on the worker’s experience and job requirements. Level 1 wages are for new entry-level workers, Level 2 for experienced workers, Level 3 for fully competent professionals, and Level 4 for experts or senior-level professionals.
Registrations for unique beneficiaries or petitions assigned wage level IV will be entered into the selection pool four times, those assigned wage level III will be entered into the selection pool three times, those assigned wage level II will be entered into the selection pool two times, and those assigned wage level I will be entered into the selection pool one time.
Each unique beneficiary will only be counted once toward the numerical allocation projections, regardless of how many registrations were submitted for that beneficiary or how many times the beneficiary is entered in the selection pool.
USCIS will rank and select registrations based on the highest wage level, starting with wage level IV and descending to wage levels III, II, and I. Therefore, the probability of being selected to file an H-1B cap-subject petition will be allocated more to levels II, III, and IV, and less to level I.
Who Gets Impacted the Most
The new H-1B Visa rule substitutes the random lottery for selecting visa recipients with a weighted selection process that prioritizes higher-skilled and higher-paid foreign workers for H-1B visas, while still allowing employers to hire H-1B workers across all wage levels.
The biggest change that the new wage-based selection process brings is it will give preference to foreign workers with higher skill levels and higher salaries. The biggest impact of the new H-1B rules will be felt by the low-skilled and lower-paid foreign workers.
In FY 2024, the average annual salary for wage level I is $85,006, for wage level II is $103,071, for wage level III is $131,454, and for wage level IV is $162,528.
Therefore, it is estimated that the percentage change in probability of being selected to file an H-1B cap-subject petition from the current to the new process will decrease by 48 percent for level I and will increase by 3 percent, 55 percent, and 107 percent for level II, level III, and level IV, respectively.