The number of properly submitted, or eligible, registrations tanked 38.5 per cent to 211,600 for FY27, from 343,981 a year earlier, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in May. The FY27 figure is at least a seven-year low, with the peak being in 2024, when there were 758,994 registrations, according to the agency’s website.
However, it could not be ascertained whether the 211,600 applications were for new filings, extensions or change-of-status requests. “Yes, we saw a steep drop. The volume for FY27 cap cases was 60-70 per cent less than that in US FY26 (which runs from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026). But in my opinion, the dip in volume was also partially because of the surge in the use of artificial intelligence solutions and partially because of changes to the lottery system, where registrations at higher salary levels were given more weight,” said Poorvi Chothani, founder and managing partner at immigration law firm LawQuest.
The US government has been adopting several measures to stem the influx of skilled immigrants through the visa process, alleging that they take away jobs from locals even as those immigrants are paid far less than prevailing US wages.
That has also prompted the government to introduce a weighted selection process that would favour higher-skilled workers over the decades-old lottery system when demand exceeds supply. This would create wage tiers, with higher-paying jobs having a better chance of selection.
IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Cognizant have thus filed for extensions of H-1B visas for onsite employees. At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of transfer petitions, though that could not be immediately quantified.
Cyrus Mehta, founder and managing partner of immigration law firm Cyrus D Mehta & Partners, said companies have been filing mainly extension and change-of-status requests for H-1B visas to avoid the $100,000 fee.
“Now that a court has set aside the fee, and if the situation continues, more companies will file H-1B petitions for prospective H-1Bs based overseas if they are selected in the H-1B lottery next March 2027,” Mehta said.
The USCIS is yet to come out with its final list of selected registrations. “When an H-1B worker changes employers, they do not need to go through the lottery again. In most cases, the worker may begin working for the new employer as soon as the change-of-employer petition is filed. In addition, many FY26 H-1B petitions were approved after significant delays, creating a pool of workers who could be deployed even before FY27 cases were adjudicated,” Chothani added.
Indian IT firms have been trying to reduce their dependence on this visa for the last decade, ever since the first Trump administration, and looking to hire more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates from local college campuses.
Data sourced from specialist staffing firm Xpheno show a steep drop in total applications by 18 Indian-listed IT services firms and Cognizant between 2025 and 2024, which fell to 8,160 from 36,453.
“The economics now favour retaining and redeploying existing H-1B talent, such as extending visas, reassigning workers across projects, hiring locally where possible, and pushing more work offshore. Bringing someone new over from India on an H-1B has become a far more selective call, given the higher cost and lower odds of selection,” said Sukanya Raman, a US visa and immigration advisor with Davies & Associates.
