H-1B visa: Premium processing for applications to resume next month

Accelerated “premium processing” for H-1B applications will resume next month, the federal government announced this week.

The $1,440 service, which buys employers a 15-calendar-day processing period, will become available starting next month, in stages depending upon visa type, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration announced.

The agency in March said premium processing would not be available at the April 1 start of the visa-processing season, to help cut processing times. Citizenship and Immigration has temporarily suspended premium processing at the start of each H-1B application period since 2017.

For H-1B applications subject to the annual 85,000 cap on new visas, including for foreign citizens on F-1 student visas, premium processing will become available June 22, the agency said in an advisory. When the agency suspended premium processing this year, it said the service would resume by May 27 for F-1 holders. But while it will miss that deadline, the June 22 resumption of premium processing for other cap-subject applications will come a week earlier than the June 29 date the agency had specified in announcing the suspension.

For applications on behalf of workers who have previously been counted toward the cap, the premium service will become available June 8.

The H-1B visa, intended for jobs requiring specialized skills, is heavily relied upon by Silicon Valley’s technology giants, which push to expand the annual cap, arguing they need more visas to secure the world’s top talent. Critics cite reported abuses, and contend that outsourcers, staffing companies and major tech firms use it to supplant U.S. workers, drive down wages and facilitate outsourcing.

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Some H-1B visas — for institutes of higher education, government organizations and non-profits — are not subject to the annual cap. Premium processing will start June 8 for already-submitted cap-exempt applications awaiting adjudication. On June 15, the service will resume for cap-exempt applications filed June 8 or later.