The FY 2025 H-1B Lottery enrollment period will open at 12:00 pm Eastern Time (EST) on March 6, 2024 and will continue until 12:00 pm EST on March 22, 2024.
On Feb. 2, 2024, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule to improve the H-1B registration selection process and program integrity. This rule created a beneficiary-centric process, under which registrations will be selected by unique beneficiary rather than by individual registration. As previously announced, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will require registrants to provide valid passport information or valid travel document information for each beneficiary.
Under the final rule, a valid passport or travel document is required at the registration stage. A passport or travel document that has expired and has not been extended is not considered valid. The passport or travel document listed in the registration must correspond to the passport or travel document the beneficiary intends to use to enter the United States, if or when the beneficiary is abroad. Each beneficiary must be registered under only one passport or travel document.
In rare instances, such as for nationals of Venezuela, the passport or travel document may be past the expiration date listed on the document (i.e., facially expired) but may have had its validity extended by decree or automatically by the national government or issuing authority that issued the passport or travel document. In these unusual circumstances, we would consider those documents to be valid since they were extended by decree or automatically. Registrants should enter the expiration date of the passport or travel document based on the extension, rather than the date which appears in the passport itself. If an H-1B petition is filed based on such registration, USCIS will review the copy of the facially expired document along with any relevant information about the extension to ensure the information entered at registration was accurate.
The passport or travel document must be valid at the time of registration. If the passport or travel document expires between when a registration is submitted and when the H-1B petition is filed, the petitioner should enter data from the new, currently valid passport or travel document on Page 3, Part 3 of Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker. In support of the H-1B petition, the petitioner should provide documentation for both passports or travel documents to establish that the passport or travel document was valid at the time of registration and an explanation as to why there was a change in identifying information.
For any other extenuating circumstances, the registrant will have an opportunity during the registration process to provide a brief explanation as to why the beneficiary does not have a valid passport or travel document.