USCIS Proposed Rule for Weighted Selection Process in H-1B Cap Lottery
On September 24, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a proposed rule, Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking to File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions, that would change the H-1B visa lottery system by creating a weighted selection process for the allocation of all 85,000 H-1B visas each fiscal year based on the assigned wage level for the position being sponsored for the H-1B visa.
The full text of the Proposed Rule can be viewed here.
In brief, the Proposed Rule indicates that USCIS would accept, as it currently does, only one registration submission for the H-1B cap lottery per beneficiary, but USCIS would enter into the selection process a beneficiary multiple times based on the assigned prevailing wage level for the beneficiary – the higher the wage level, the more entries and potentially higher probability of being selected (Level IV = 4 times; Level III = 3 times; Level II = 2 times; Level I = 1 time).
The text of the rule indicates that a weighted selection process would “generally favor the allocation of H-1B visas to higher skilled and higher paid aliens, while maintaining the opportunity for employers to secure H-1B workers at all wage levels.”
Again, this is a Proposed Rule, there is a 30-day comment period followed by a review process by USCIS/USDHS before any decision on a potential final/interim final rule may be published. The ISO/ISchO will keep the MIT community updated on the Major Immigration Alerts & Updates webpage as more information becomes available.
