H-1B Visa: Sponsorship, the Lottery, and Cap-Exempt Employers

The H-1B is the main route for skilled professionals to work in the United States — and the most oversubscribed. Every spring, several hundred thousand registrations compete for 85,000 places. Understanding the cap, and the employers who sit outside it entirely, is the difference between an annual lottery ticket and a year-round certainty.

What the H-1B is

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa for a specialty occupation — a role that normally requires at least a bachelor's degree in a specific field. Core features:

• Employer-sponsored. You cannot self-petition. The job, not you, is the applicant.
• Three years, extendable to six — with further extensions available once a green card process is sufficiently advanced.
• Dual intent permitted. You may pursue a green card while holding H-1B, unlike E-2.
• Prevailing wage required. The employer must attest to paying the prevailing wage for the role and location.
• Portable. You can change employers via a transfer petition without re-entering the lottery.

The cap and the lottery

The annual cap is 65,000, plus 20,000 reserved for holders of a US master's degree or higher — 85,000 in total. Because demand runs several times supply, USCIS runs a registration lottery each March, with a registration fee that rose sharply to USD 215 per beneficiary in 2025.

Selection is chance, not merit. A stronger candidate does not improve their odds. This is why the exemption below matters so much.

Cap-exempt employers: the H-1B without the lottery

Under INA §214(g)(5), four categories of employer are not subject to the cap at all. Their petitions can be filed at any time of year, with no registration and no lottery:

• Institutions of higher education — accredited US colleges and universities.
• Non-profit entities related to or affiliated with an institution of higher education — teaching hospitals and university-affiliated research institutes are the classic cases.
• Non-profit research organisations.
• Governmental research organisations.

The second category is the one most people miss. A research institution linked to a university — a medical centre, an affiliated institute, a joint research entity — can sponsor H-1B workers outside the cap entirely, year-round.

Two rules worth knowing

First, the 2025 modernisation rule replaced the rigid "primarily engaged" test for research organisations with a "fundamental activity" standard, meaning an entity qualifies if research is a fundamental activity rather than its sole mission. That widened the door considerably.

Second — and least known — you can be cap-exempt based on where you work, not only who pays you. A for-profit employer can place an H-1B worker at a qualifying institution, and if the work directly furthers that institution's essential purpose, the petition can be cap-exempt. A related strategy allows a concurrent H-1B: hold a part-time cap-exempt university appointment and a second, concurrent H-1B with a cap-subject employer, without either entering the lottery.

Our full guide to cap-exempt sponsorship covers the affiliation tests, the concurrent strategy, and the trade-offs in detail.

The trade-offs

• Cap-exemption attaches to the employment, not to you. Move to a purely for-profit role with no qualifying tie and you generally must be counted against the cap then.
• Pay is typically lower at universities and non-profits — traded for certainty and, often, a stronger research profile for EB-1A or EB-2 NIW later.

H-1B and the green card

H-1B is a bridge, not a destination. The six-year clock runs whether or not you start a green card process, so begin it early — particularly if you were born in India, where per-country caps mean EB-2 and EB-3 queues run for years. If you may qualify for O-1A, EB-1A or an NIW, assess that early rather than defaulting to employer sponsorship.

General information, not legal advice.