H-1B visa

H-1B is two different processes wearing one name.

There is the H-1B everyone knows: a fixed number each year, a registration in the spring, a selection by chance. And there is the H-1B that runs all year with no lottery at all: cap-exempt employers, extensions, amendments and employer changes. The legal standard is the same in both. This page shows you which of the two your situation belongs to.

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Who you would be working with, and how the work runs

The employment-based categories on this site are all handled here, and they are handled by the same attorney. A company with an H-1B question, a labor certification and a green card to plan does not need three firms, three intakes and three explanations of its own org chart.

There is one attorney at this firm. The person who reads your documents is the person who writes the petition and signs the filing, and two paralegals work the file alongside me. That is not a service promise, it is the shape of the firm, and it is the reason there is nobody for a question to get handed to.

Every matter carries a written checklist: what I need from you, what I am working on now, and what comes next. The filing is built from your own documents, because the facts that decide these cases are specific to one company and one role and no template holds them. The person the case is filed for gets a portal account of their own for documents and status, which keeps their personal papers out of a shared inbox. Fees are flat per matter and staged, quoted in three separate lines: the attorney fee, government filing fees, and other costs.

On scope, since it gets asked: H-1B work is taken here across the category, new cap-subject sponsorship included, alongside cap-exempt petitions, extensions, amendments and employer changes.

H-1B at a glance

The cap has a season

Registration each spring, selection by chance, work months later. Cap-exempt petitions have no season.
A specialty occupation

The job needs at least a bachelor's degree in a specific specialty, and the degree has to match the duties.
The wage is a legal obligation

Before filing, the employer attests to the higher of the actual wage and the prevailing wage.
Up to three years at a time, six in all

Extensions past the sixth year exist when a green card process is far enough along.

Is this your situation?

If one of these is close, this category is worth a proper look.

You are a university, a teaching hospital or a research nonprofit hiring a specialist.: You may never need the lottery. The statute exempts institutions of higher education, their related or affiliated nonprofits, and nonprofit or governmental research organizations from the cap, and a cap-exempt petition can be filed any day of the year. Many qualifying employers do not know they qualify.
You already hold H-1B and something is changing: the clock, the job, or the employer.: Extensions, amendments and employer changes are where most real H-1B work lives. Portability lets you start with a new employer on a properly filed petition rather than an approved one, and extensions past the sixth year exist when a green card process is far enough along. The timing is everything.
You are on F-1 OPT at a qualifying institution and the clock is running.: An employee timing out of OPT at a cap-exempt employer is the case the exemption quietly solves: no registration, no spring window, a petition when the file is ready. Whether the employer qualifies is a legal question with a documentary answer, and it is worth asking early.

“Cap-exempt petitions have no season.”

The test

What the law actually requires

All of it is checkable. The classification is INA 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), and the working regulation is 8 CFR 214.2(h).

Two processes under one name

Cap-subject

Who: Most private employers hiring someone new to H-1B.
The gate: An electronic registration each spring, selected by chance. The registration carries the wage level of the offered position, and entries are allocated by that level.
When: Registration in the spring, the petition after selection, and work months later at the start of the government's fiscal year.
Rule: INA 214(g)

For an F-1 student, a cap-subject petition that is timely filed and asks for a change of status extends F-1 status automatically, and work authorization too where OPT was still running (8 CFR 214.2(f)(5)(vi)). Post-completion OPT runs up to twelve months, plus twenty-four more on a STEM extension with an E-Verify employer. That runway ends, and the year it ends is the year the plan has to be something other than a registration.

Cap-exempt

Who: Institutions of higher education, their related or affiliated nonprofits, and nonprofit or governmental research organizations.
The gate: No registration and no lottery. The same specialty-occupation and wage rules apply.
When: Any day of the year, when the file is ready. Extensions, amendments and employer changes for people already in H-1B run all year too.
Rule: INA 214(g)(5)

Many qualifying employers do not know they qualify. Whether one does is a legal question with a documentary answer.

The legal standard is the same on both sides. Which side you are on decides the calendar, so we settle that first.

Specialty occupation: any one of four

INA 214(i)(1) defines a specialty occupation as one that applies a body of highly specialized knowledge and needs at least a bachelor's degree in the specific specialty. The regulation at 8 CFR 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A) turns that into four criteria, and the position has to meet at least one.

Any1of the4

a bachelor's or higher in the specialty is normally the minimum for the position
the degree is common to the industry, or the job is so complex it needs one
the employer normally requires the degree for the position
the duties are so specialized that the knowledge is usually tied to the degree

The recurring battleground is not which criterion. It is whether the degree field matches the actual duties.

The labor condition application comes first

Before the petition, the employer files a labor condition application with the Department of Labor under INA 212(n). It attests that it will pay at least the higher of the actual wage and the prevailing wage for the role and place, that working conditions will not be adversely affected, that there is no strike or lockout, and that notice was given. The LCA is a set of ongoing legal obligations with a public access file behind it, not a formality, and the wage line is the part employers most often underestimate.

Renewals, the six-year total, and changing employers

H-1B time comes in increments of up to three years toward a total of six, under INA 214(g)(4). Days spent abroad while an approved H-1B is valid do not count against that total; they can be recaptured on a later petition that identifies and proves them. Portability under INA 214(n) lets a person already in H-1B status start with a new employer once a non-frivolous petition is properly filed. Past the sixth year, AC21 carries two extension routes: section 104(c) when an approved I-140 exists but the visa number is not current, and section 106(a) when a labor certification or I-140 has been pending long enough. Which one applies is exact, which is why the green card steps are planned against the H-1B clock from the start.

Status, grace, and the people attached

When H-1B employment ends early, 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2) provides a discretionary grace period of up to sixty days, or until the current stay expires if that is sooner, in which the person can move to a new employer, change status, or depart. H-4 is the status for the spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one. An H-4 spouse can apply for work authorization only in defined situations tied to the green card process, principally an approved I-140, and for a two-income household that belongs in the plan at the start.

The honest part

What is hard about it

Two things the decision should be made with.

The degree has to match the duties

The most common request for evidence in the category asks why this job requires that degree. Roles written broadly, or filled by people whose degrees sit near the field rather than in it, need the match built in the record: what the duties are, what knowledge they consume, and why the industry treats the degree as the entry ticket.

The draw is a fact, and the wage level is a decision

For cap-subject hires the registration goes into a draw, and the number of entries it receives is set by the wage level of the offered position rather than being one apiece. So the wage is a selection decision as well as a budget decision, and no registration is guaranteed a place either way. Honest planning treats the registration as one path among several and prices the alternatives at the same time: cap-exempt routes where they exist, O-1 where the record carries it, and the cost of waiting another year.

The clock

Where the calendar comes from

Every clock belongs to an agency, and every agency publishes its own current numbers. Check those rather than a figure typed onto a law firm page.

The cap has a season, and USCIS announces it

The registration window and the selection are run by USCIS, and each year's dates are announced on uscis.gov. A cap-subject hire is planned around that announcement. A cap-exempt one ignores it entirely.

The LCA runs on the Department of Labor clock

The labor condition application is filed and certified through the FLAG system at flag.dol.gov, on the timeline the Department of Labor publishes, and the petition cannot be filed without it. It is the small clock people forget in front of the big one.

USCIS publishes I-129 processing times, and premium buys a clock

The processing-times tool at egov.uscis.gov reports what each office is taking on Form I-129, as a description of decided cases. Form I-907 premium processing buys a commitment to act within a fixed number of days, published on the USCIS I-907 page, and acting includes a request for evidence as much as an approval.

Each of those pages belongs to the agency that decides the case, and each shows the date it was last updated.

The sequence

Where the time actually goes

Here is the order of a case in this category: who acts at each step, and whose clock is running. Two of those clocks are different animals, and telling them apart is most of what people are really asking. A period fixed by regulation is the same this year and next. A backlog is a fact about a queue on one particular day, so this page does not print one. It hands you the agency page where the current figure lives.

USCIS
USCIS opens electronic registration and runs the selection for the year.
Opens on announced dates
Registration is a fixed window, not a queue. Miss it and the next opportunity is the following year.
USCIS H-1B cap seasonCheck the current figure at uscis.gov
You
You and your attorney build the record: the evidence, the letters, the exhibits, the petition itself.
No published figure
This is the one stretch on the list that no agency measures. It moves with what already exists and what still has to be created.
Department of Labor
The Department of Labor certifies the labor condition application for the role.
Set by regulationForm ETA-9035
- The Department of Labor has no more than 7 business days to decide it.
This period is set by regulation rather than by a queue, so it does not move with backlog. The Department of Labor publishes queue figures for prevailing wage and labor certification, and none for this step, because this step does not have one.
Rule 20 CFR 655.740(a)Source ecfr.gov
USCIS
USCIS decides the petition.
Set by the backlogForm I-129
The figure USCIS publishes is how long it took to finish eight in ten decided cases over the previous six months. It is a record of what already happened, not a forecast for the case in front of you.
Premium processing
Premium processing is a paid USCIS service available on this form. For I-129 in this classification, USCIS states a period of 15 business days.
That period stops and starts over from the beginning if USCIS issues a request for evidence, so it buys a faster look at the file rather than a shorter case.
Eligibility is set per form and per classification, and USCIS can change it.
USCIS processing timesCheck the current figure at egov.uscis.gov

Sources and definitions

Opens on announced dates: The government opens this on dates it announces for each year.
No published figure: No agency publishes a time for this step. Anyone quoting you one is guessing.
Set by regulation: A rule fixes this period. It is the same for everyone and it does not move with the backlog.
Set by the backlog: How long this step takes depends on the agency's queue that month. The current figure is on the agency's own page, which is why it is not repeated here.

USCIS H-1B cap season: The registration dates USCIS announces for each year, and what the selection process involves.
USCIS processing times: Pick the form, the classification and the office. What USCIS posts there is how long it took to finish eight in ten decided cases over the previous six months, refreshed monthly.
USCIS premium processing: Which forms and classifications are eligible, what it costs, and the period USCIS states for each of them.

The Department of Labor handles wage and recruitment steps before a petition is filed.
USCIS is U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that decides petitions.

Every stage, form number and period below comes from the agency that owns that step. None of it is this firm's estimate, and none of it is a prediction about your case.

Sources last checked August 16, 2026.

The links go to live government pages, so what you find there will be newer than that.

The employer page, for the whole track

How employer-sponsored work is structured at this firm, the categories that sit beside H-1B, and where the calendar for each one comes from.

Read the employer page
O-1, the no-lottery comparison

For a person whose record already shows recognized work, O-1 has no cap and no season, and the employer can be the petitioner. If the lottery is the only thing standing between a company and a person it wants, this is the page to price next.

Read the O-1 page
What it costs

Fees here are always quoted in three separate lines: the attorney fee, government filing fees, and other costs. The published numbers live on one page.

See the full fee breakdown

A record from this category

H-1B
The six-year limit had more room than the paperwork showed

A job change inside the 60-day grace period, with a validity date that looked like it asked for more time than was left. Reading the travel history entry by entry is what made the full period fit.

Change of employer, full period requested, approved

Client-identifying detail has been removed.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case turns on its own facts, its own evidence, and the law in effect when it is decided.

Read the case

Read every published record

If the lottery is the whole plan, price a second plan.

A consultation here is mostly sorting: which of the two H-1B processes your situation belongs to, whether an exemption or another category fits, and what the honest calendar looks like. I will tell you how I read it, including if the answer is a different path entirely.

Two ways to start, and who you sit with

The first is a free intake with my team. The second is the paid consultation, and that one is with me.

Intake

15 minutes · Free

My paralegal team, not me

A short conversation to hear what is going on and get it written down properly. My paralegals ask about your status, your dates, your employer if there is one, and what you have already tried. By the end of it you know what a consultation with me would cover and whether it is worth booking one yet.

This step is intake and scheduling. My paralegals do not give legal advice, do not tell you whether you qualify for anything, and do not recommend a visa category. That part is mine, and it happens in the attorney consultation.
Attorney consultation

60 minutes · $150

If you go on to retain the firm for the matter the consultation covered, the fee is credited toward your fee for that case. The credit does not expire.

Joe Kwon, the attorney who would handle the case

This is where the legal discussion happens. You tell me what you have and what you are trying to do, and I tell you what I think, including when I think the answer is no. Some of these end with me not taking the case. That is a real result of the call, not a failure of it. I read what you send before we sit down, so the whole session goes to your question. The consultation runs as a video call, from wherever you are.

Book a consultation See the full fee breakdown

Booking does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Immigration benefits are decided by government officers who apply the law to the record in front of them, and many of them are discretionary. No attorney can promise you an approval, and anyone who does is telling you what you want to hear. What good lawyering controls is whether your case is complete, specific, and internally consistent, so that approving it is the officer's easiest path.