H-1B 2026: Salary-Weighted Selection Replaces the Lottery

The H-1B lottery is undergoing its most significant overhaul in over a decade. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published on September 24, 2025, a proposed rule that replaces the purely random drawing with a wage-level-weighted system, redistributing selection odds in favor of employers offering higher compensation. The proposal followed the standard regulatory cycle, with a 30-day public comment period before being finalized as a final rule.

The mechanics are straightforward. Each beneficiary registered in the lottery receives a number of pool entries proportional to the wage level assigned by the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), the Department of Labor’s official wage table. Those registered at Wage Level I get a single entry, Level II receives two, Level III receives three, and Level IV receives four. The weight quadruples across the spectrum, radically changing the math of the drawing.

For the foreign worker, the consequence is direct: higher salaries mean a greater probability of selection within a pool inflated by tens of thousands of registrations. For the employer, the calculation now involves careful decisions about how to classify the offered position and which salary structure maximizes hiring viability.

How the Wage Level Is Determined

The OEWS defines four tiers for each combination of Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) and geographic area of employment. A software engineer in San Francisco has different wage ranges than a software engineer in Atlanta, and within each locality there are four levels based on experience, complexity, and job independence.

• Wage Level I: entry-level positions, typically recent graduates or candidates under constant supervision.
• Wage Level II: qualified professionals capable of performing tasks with moderate supervision.
• Wage Level III: experienced professionals working autonomously on complete projects.
• Wage Level IV: fully competent professionals exercising independent judgment in complex matters.

The employer cannot choose the level arbitrarily. The classification must reflect the actual job requirements described in the petition, and the compensation must equal or exceed the corresponding prevailing wage. DHS made clear that attempts to artificially inflate the wage level during registration — followed by a reduction after selection — subject the employer to denial or revocation of approval.

The Lowest-Level Rule

An important technical detail applies to the scenario where the same professional is registered by multiple employers. When this happens — a common situation in consulting firms and markets where high-demand candidates receive competing offers — the weight applied in the lottery reflects the lowest wage level among all registrations for that beneficiary. If three employers register the same person, two at Level III and one at Level I, the effective pool entry reflects Level I.

The stated goal is to discourage opportunistic registrations. Under the previous rule, additional registrations linearly increased the beneficiary’s chances, creating an incentive for candidates to line up multiple offers even when some were low-qualification. Under the new design, the weight is pulled down by the lowest-value registration, neutralizing the marginal gain of inflating the number of sponsors.

New Registration Requirements

DHS expanded the mandatory fields in the electronic registration phase. Employers now disclose, even before competing in the drawing, three pieces of information previously required only in the petition:

• The OEWS wage level applicable to the position.
• The SOC code corresponding to the occupation.
• The intended geographic area of employment.

Consistency between the initial registration and the subsequent I-129 petition will be strictly monitored. The salary offered in the final petition must equal or exceed the prevailing wage minimum for that SOC in that locality. USCIS received authority to deny or cancel approvals when it identifies an intentional discrepancy between the offer declared for selection purposes and the offer actually made.

Application to Both Pools

The salary weighting applies to both the regular quota of 65,000 H-1B visas and the additional 20,000 quota reserved for holders of master’s degrees or doctorates from U.S. institutions, known as the advanced degree exemption or master’s cap. The model is identical in both pools: registrations are weighted by Wage Level before the drawing, and the master’s pool retains its historical privilege of two chances at selection — first in the master’s cap and then, if not selected, in the regular pool.

The Regulatory Rationale

The justification offered by DHS in the preamble is that the random lottery had been diverting the program from its original design. The H-1B was built to attract highly specialized talent, but recent cycle statistics showed a disproportionate concentration of petitions at Wage Levels I and II. For the regulator, this indicated that the random system was rewarding volume over qualification.

The administration argues that weighting corrects this deviation without eliminating opportunities for lower wage levels. Unlike a prior proposal — rejected in past regulatory cycles — that would have effectively excluded entry-level applicants from the pool, the new model only reduces relative probability: a Level I candidate still has a chance of being selected, just mathematically lower than a Level IV.

Impact on Smaller Employers

The change is not economically neutral. Initial estimates tied to the regulatory text indicated that the probability of selection for Wage Levels I and II could fall by around 48% under the new design. The effect falls most heavily on two groups: small and mid-sized companies that rely on entry-level hires, and recently graduated international students in STEM programs who traditionally enter the U.S. market at Wage Level I in their first post-OPT job.

Recent graduates from U.S. universities, who historically represent a significant share of H-1B petitions, tend to be registered at Level I or II for legitimate salary reasons — there is no accumulated professional experience to justify a higher classification. The reduction in selection probability for this cohort concerns sectors such as technology, biomedical research, and engineering, where hiring recently graduated foreign talent is a strategic input.

Smaller companies face an additional dilemma. They lack the salary flexibility of large corporations to fit a position into Wage Level III or IV solely to improve their standing in the lottery, and they lose competitiveness against employers capable of offering top-of-the-curve compensation.

What Remains Unresolved

The regulation does not address the program’s most widely discussed structural problem: the numerical cap of 85,000 visas per fiscal year, set by law since 2004, against registered demand that recently surpassed 470,000 registrations. The weighting reorganizes who is selected but does not expand the universe of approvals. Raising the cap requires congressional action, not administrative rulemaking.

Another sensitive point is the interaction with the $100,000 surcharge applicable to certain categories of new H-1B petitions, enacted by executive proclamation in mid-2025. The combination of salary-weighted selection with elevated fees tends to concentrate the program in the hands of financially powerful employers — exactly the direction signaled by the rhetoric of prioritizing the “best and brightest.”

Upcoming Registration Cycles

The typical H-1B calendar opens electronic registration in March, with selection and notification by the end of the month. The I-129 petition window follows from April to June, and approved visas take effect on October 1, the first day of the fiscal year. Employers intending to sponsor workers need to review their wage classification practices well before the registration cycle, calibrating the job offer to accurately reflect the appropriate Wage Level and maximize competitiveness within the new model.

For the foreign worker, professional strategy takes on added weight. Accumulating relevant experience, positioning oneself in roles with high requirements, and negotiating compensation aligned with Level III or IV is no longer merely a career matter — it becomes a direct variable in the odds of obtaining a U.S. visa.

Victoria Harper

Editor-in-Chief

Meet the author

Leading journalism and editorial content at Visto n’ Visa, Victoria helps make immigration topics clear, trustworthy, and easy to understand. Her focus is on delivering useful, human, and relevant content for people exploring new paths abroad.