On November 23, 2011, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced that it had received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap of 65,000 for fiscal year 2012 (“FY 2012″).

November 22, 2011 was the final receipt date for new H-1B specialty occupation petitions requesting an employment start date in FY 2012. As of October 19, 2011, USCIS had also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions filed on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the “advanced degree” exemption. USCIS will now reject cap-subject petitions for new H-1B specialty occupation workers seeking an employment start date in FY 2012 that were received after November 22, 2011.

Of course, USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap. In addition, petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap will not be counted toward the FY 2012 H-1B cap.

U.S. businesses use the H-1B program to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields, such as scientists, engineers, or computer programmers. The current annual cap on the H-1B category is 65,000. However, some petitions are exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption provided to the first 20,000 petitions filed for a beneficiary who has obtained a U.S. master’s degree or higher. Others are completely exempt from the numerical limits.

Please note that, each year, up to 6,800 H-1B numbers may be set aside from the cap of 65,000 during each fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool are made available for H-1B use for the next fiscal year.

For further information regarding the H-1B category, please review our H-1B article, which is available here.