H-1B visas for skilled workers were introduced in 1990. They are usually issued for three years, but can be extended up to six years.
Since 2004, the number of new H-1B visas issued has been limited to 85,000 per year, 20,000 of which are for international students with a master’s degree or higher from a US university.
However, this limit does not apply to some institutions, such as universities, think tanks and other non-profit research groups, so more is often issued.
People can apply for an H-1B visa only if they have a job with a sponsoring US company or institution.
The US government also approves extensions for those already working in the country.
Just over 386,000 H-1B petitions were approved in fiscal year 2023 (October 2022 to September 2023), the most recent year for which we have complete data, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) numbers., external.
This includes nearly 119,000 new H-1B visas and about 267,000 extensions of existing visas.
The 2023 total is down from more than 474,000 in 2022.
There have been attempts in the past to further limit the H-1B program.
In 2017, then-President Trump signed the order, external that increased scrutiny of H-1B visa applications. The order aims to improve fraud detection within the scheme.
The rejection rate hit the all-time high under the first Trump administration, externalreaching 24% in fiscal year 2018, compared to deviation rates of 5-8% under the Obama administration and 2-4% under President Biden.
However, the total number of approved applicants under the Biden administration was the same as during the first Trump administration.
In the three years since President Trump’s executive order (2018-2020), about 1.1 million applications have been approved, with about 343,000 first-time applicants.
In the first three years of the Biden administration (2021-2023), about 1.2 million applications were approved, of which nearly 375,000 were new applicants.
