What are the consequences of the H-1B visa cap?

One great disadvantage of the H-1B visa is the strict quota, which limits the number of visas per fiscal year. This is officially referred to as the visa cap, meaning there is an annual limit of visas to be issued. A fiscal year in the U.S. begins October 1 and ends September 30 the following year. So the fiscal year 2009 would be from October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009.

The current cap (the number of visas that can be issued during one fiscal year) is currently set at 65,000. Of those, 6,500 alone are reserved for citizens of Chile and Singapore due to free trade agreements.

Discussions to raise the cap to 195,000 visas, which was the quota during the IT boom, never quite die down (they are kept alive especially by big companies like Microsoft and Google), but up to now, it has not been put into effect.

If the cap for the current fiscal year has already been met, you will have to switch to another visa type (e.g E-1/E-2 or L visa). Of course you have to check your eligibility for either of them first.

What are the consequences of the H-1B visa cap?

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