U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that it received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated H-1B cap for fiscal year 2027, filling both the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 U.S. advanced-degree (master’s) exemption. In practical terms, all 85,000 available slots are accounted for — and USCIS confirmed there will be no second lottery this year. Applicants who were not selected in the initial round will not get another chance for FY2027.
The more consequential story is how those slots were filled. FY2027 is the first cycle conducted under the Department of Homeland Security’s new wage-based (weighted) selection system, a significant departure from the purely random lottery used for years. Under the weighted approach, registrations tied to higher offered wages receive proportionally greater odds of selection.
The data shows the shift is already changing who gets picked. USCIS received roughly 211,600 eligible registrations for FY2027 — a steep 38.5% drop from the 343,981 registrations submitted for FY2026. The decline is widely attributed to reduced multiple-registration gaming and to employers self-selecting out under the wage-weighted rules. Notably, about 71.5% of selected beneficiaries held a U.S. advanced degree, up sharply from roughly 57% in the prior cycle — evidence that the new system is favoring higher-wage, higher-credential candidates.
For employers and beneficiaries, the takeaways are concrete: if you were not selected, plan around alternative pathways rather than waiting for a second drawing that will not come. For future cycles, the weighted system rewards higher wage levels and advanced degrees, so wage level and role classification now carry more strategic weight than ever.
Many H-1B holders and hopefuls also pursue employment-based green cards in parallel. For high-skilled professionals, the EB-2 National Interest Waiver (NIW) and EB-1A extraordinary-ability categories can offer a self-petition route that does not depend on the annual H-1B lottery at all.
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Source: Reddit r/h1b