USCIS published Form I-129 adjudication data through June 30, 2026 as part of its September 8 quarterly data release, and the numbers complicate the prevailing story about an H-1B crackdown. Through the first three quarters of fiscal year 2026, USCIS approved 97% of H-1B petitions it completed and issued a request for evidence in only 8.5% of cases.
The monthly detail shows no tightening as the year progressed. In April, the H-1B approval rate was 96.6% with an 8.7% RFE rate. In May it was 96.3% and 8.3%. In June — the most recent month in the data — the approval rate rose to 97.8% and the RFE rate fell to 6.7%, the lowest of the quarter. Across the full nine-month period USCIS received 312,830 H-1B petitions, approved 270,419 and denied 8,231.
The contrast with other work visa categories is sharp. L-1A petitions for multinational managers drew an RFE in 25.9% of completions over the same period, with an approval rate of 91.2%. O-1 extraordinary ability petitions drew an RFE in 24.2% of cases at a 91.0% approval rate. Both categories carry roughly three to four times the RFE burden of H-1B, and both held steady near those elevated levels through April, May and June rather than converging toward the H-1B figure.
There is an important limit on what this data can show. It covers petitions completed through June 30, 2026, which is before the major H-1B policy changes now in motion took effect or were even proposed in final form — the $103,265 cap-subject fee proposal, the revived third-party placement rule, and the narrowing of cap exemptions. Enforcement activity that USCIS has been publicizing, including wage-level misclassification findings and site visits, also tends to surface in fraud referrals and post-approval revocations rather than in initial approval rates. A crackdown announced in the summer of 2026 would not appear in adjudication data that stops in June.
The practical read for petitioners: as of the most recent hard data, a well-documented H-1B petition still clears at roughly the same rate it has for several years, and the RFE risk on a standard filing is under one in ten. The categories where evidentiary scrutiny is genuinely heavy right now are L-1 and O-1, where roughly one petition in four draws an RFE. Employers weighing H-1B against an L-1A transfer or an O-1 for the same worker should factor that difference into both timeline and legal cost, and should watch the next quarterly release — covering July through September — for the first sign of whether the announced enforcement push is changing outcomes.
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Source: 1Point3Acres (一亩三分地)