REGULATION: Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking to File Cap Subject H-1B Petitions
Department of Homeland Security
Notice Date: Sept. 24, 2025
Effective Date: Oct. 24, 2025
DHS proposes to implement a weighted selection process that would generally favor the allocation of H-1B visas to higher skilled and higher paid aliens. Specifically, the proposal would weight registrations (or petitions) for selection generally based on each beneficiary’s equivalent wage levels.
A version of this regulation was issued in November of 2020 by the first Trump Administration. The new proposed regulation changes the process so that alien applicants who are offered higher wages are not determinatively selected based on wage, but rather they are given weighted preference in the lottery selection.
Registrations for unique beneficiaries or petitions assigned wage level IV would be entered into the selection pool four times, those assigned wage level III would be entered into the selection pool three times, those assigned wage level II would be entered into the selection pool two times, and those assigned wage level I would be entered into the selection pool one time.
DHS says this change is designed to provide some possibility for selection at lower wage levels. We will have to see how this impacts allocations in practice, but this regulation is a weaker version of the 2020 regulation.