Government data show the H-1B visa is the most restrictive category in the U.S. immigration system, calling into question efforts to impose additional rules on employers and visa holders. Employers use H-1B visas to hire foreign-born scientists, engineers and other highly skilled individuals. Obtaining H-1B status is typically the only practical way a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, can work long term in the United States. However, due to the numerical limit and high company demand, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services must engage in a random selection process each year. USCIS announced the initial H-B registration period for the FY 2026 H-1B cap runs from March 7 to 24, 2025.
H-1B Is The Most Restrictive Visa Category In the U.S. Immigration System
In 1990, Congress established a 65,000 annual limit on new H-1B petitions for high-skilled foreign nationals. In 2004, the H-1B annual limit became 85,000 after lawmakers exempted 20,000 individuals a year who earned a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. university. Companies have exhausted the supply of new H-1B visas since FY 2004. Before 1990, employers could hire professionals on H-1 visas without a numerical ceiling. In 2000, Congress exempted H-1B petitions for U.S. universities and nonprofit and government research institutions from the annual limit.
Due to the 85,000 numerical ceiling, getting permission to sponsor a highly skilled worker is arduous. “The low annual limit on new H-1B petitions makes the category the most restrictive visa in the U.S. immigration system,” according to a new National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “In FY 2025, employers filed at least 423,028 eligible H-1B registrations, but USICS could only allow 85,000 new foreign nationals to obtain H-1B status under the annual limit, an approval rate of only 20%.”
More than 300,000 eligible high-skilled individuals could not gain H-1B status to work in the United States in FY 2025 because of the annual limit. Analysts say the low H-1B ceiling has bedeviled employers and made it harder for the United States to retain talented individuals, including international students.
The analysis found that getting any other major visa is much easier than an H-1B visa. Although only 20% of new H-1B applications turn into workers under the 85,000 limit, the U.S. government approved 72% of individuals who applied for visitor visas (B1/B2) in FY 2024 and 89% of J-1 visas, which include exchange visitors such as researchers and summer workers.
For a country as large as America, the 85,000 annual ceiling for new H-1B petitions is low, the equivalent of only 0.05% of the U.S. labor force. Companies worry that being unable to hire high-skilled foreign-born talent will disadvantage them in AI and other competitive technology fields. Employers also must contend with a new Department of Justice memo that mandates DOJ attorneys pursue immigration-related prosecutions.
Immigration Critics Overlook High Fees And The H-1B Annual Limit
In January 2025, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) criticized the category after Elon Musk defended H-1B visas. Sanders repeated arguments he had used since at least 2009, including that H-1B visa holders are “low paid guest workers.” Data show the reality is quite different.
The average annual salary for an H-1B visa holder in computer-related occupations in 2023 was $132,000, and the median salary was $122,000, according to USCIS statistics. “The USCIS data show H-1B visa holders are paid high salaries, and it contradicts the idea that these are low-skilled people since employers would not pay people with low skills such high salaries,” said NFAP’s Mark Regets.
The law requires employers to pay the higher of the prevailing or actual wage paid to similar U.S. workers with similar experience levels. Companies point out that legal and government fees for filing an initial H-1B petition and an extension could cost employers up to $34,900 and much more to sponsor a professional for permanent residence.
The annual limit makes the H-1B visa the most restrictive category in the U.S. immigration system and produces outcomes lawmakers likely never intended. According to the NFAP study, “A European teenager is four times more likely to get a visa to work at a summer amusement park than a graduate student is to receive H-1B status to work for a U.S. company on artificial intelligence.”