U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has received enough petitions to meet the congressionally established H-2B cap for the second half of FY 2025. March 5, 2025, was the final receipt date for new cap-subject H-2B worker petitions requesting an employment start date on or after April 1, 2025, and before October 1, 2025.
All the new cap-subject H-2B petitions received after March 5, 2025, that request an employment start date on or after April 1, 2025, and before October 1, 2025, will be rejected by USCIS.
However, the filing dates for supplemental H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2025 are now available. Currently, Congress has set the H-2B cap at 66,000 per fiscal year, with 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year (Oct. 1 – Mar. 31) and 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year (Apr. 1—Sep. 30).
In November 2024, the US announced that it expects to make an additional 64,716 H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas available for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. The additional H-2B visas will be in addition to the congressionally mandated 66,000 H-2B visas that are available each fiscal year.
On December 2, 2024, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) jointly published a temporary final rule increasing the numerical limit (or cap) on H-2B nonimmigrant visas by up to 64,716 additional visas for all of fiscal year 2025.
These supplemental visas are available only to U.S. businesses that are suffering irreparable harm or will suffer impending irreparable harm without the ability to employ all the H-2B workers requested in their petition, as attested by the employer on a new attestation form.
In January 2025, USCIS announced that it has received enough petitions to reach the cap for the additional 20,716 H-2B visas made available for returning workers for the first half of fiscal year 2025 with start dates on or before March 31, 2025, under the H-2B supplemental cap temporary final rule for financial year 2025.
The H-2B program allows U.S. employers who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary nonagricultural jobs.
Congress created the H-2B non-agricultural temporary worker program to allow U.S. employers to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill temporary non-agricultural jobs.
The maximum period of stay in the H-2B classification is three years. A person who has held H-2B nonimmigrant status for a total of three years must depart and remain outside of the United States for an uninterrupted period of three months before seeking readmission as an H-2B nonimmigrant.
The new regulation simplifies the H-2B program worker stay restrictions by eliminating “interrupted” stay provisions and establishing a consistent 60-day absence time to reset the 3-year clock. This implies that an H-2 worker can now seek new eligible employment or prepare to leave the United States for up to 60 days after their employment ends without violating their H-2 status or accruing unlawful presence.
The regulation would divide the supplemental visas for returning workers between the first and second halves of the fiscal year to account for the need for additional seasonal and other temporary workers throughout the year, with a portion of the second half allocation set aside to meet demand during the peak summer season.