This article was prepared with the assistance of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, of which Loan Huynh is an active member.
On February 13, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has received enough petitions to reach the cap for the additional 18,490 H-2B visas made available under a temporary final rule for the first allocation of returning workers of Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 with start dates from January 1 to March 31, 2026. February 6, 2026, was the final receipt date for petitions requesting supplemental H-2B visas under the first allocation.
USCIS explained that it received more petitions than available H-2B visas for the first allocation. The agency used a computer-generated selection process to allocate the visas without exceeding the first FY 2026 supplemental cap allocation. On February 13, 2026, USCIS conducted this random selection process for petitions received on the first five business days of filing (February 2-6, 2026).
