As of July 2, 2010, the USCIS has released the following H-1B visa numbers:
*Of the 65,000 H-1B annual visas available, USCIS has received 24,200 H-1B’s so far.
*Of the 20,000 H-1B annual visas available for Master’s cap, USCIS has received 10,400 H-1B’s so far.
Please refer to
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4b7cdd1d5fd37210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=73566811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD for more information.
The USCIS anticipates that the H-1B visa numbers will all be gone by August 2010. Please see http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/_Significant_growth_in_H1B_visa__recovery-nid-69142.html for more information. While USCIS anticipates that the H-1B numbers will all be gone by August 2010, I believe we still have a little more time to get these visas filed, as we still have half of the visa availability limits remaining. For each year, USCIS only allows 65,000 for H-1B visas. When these visas are used up, then applicants must wait until the next fiscal year to file for H-1B work visas. The earliest date that USCIS accepts H-1B visas for a new fiscal year is on April 1st of each year. The H-1B start date, though, for a new H-1B visa applicant is a start employment date of October 1st of that year.
In previous years before the downturn, it was not uncommon for USCIS to receive OVER the visa limits on April 1st or April 2nd of that year. However, in the years of 2009 and 2010, H-1B visas remained available until much longer than that, which is probably a result of a slow economy.