US to allow resubmission of rejected H-1B petitions for FY2021

The US will now accept resubmitted FY 2021 H-1B cap-subject petitions that were rejected or administratively closed solely because the requested start date was after Oct. 1, 2020. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) which administers the immigration process said on Wednesday that applicants can re-submit previously filed petitions which were rejected or administratively closed because of the start date. Last year, the number of petitions filed during the initial filing period was below the number projected to reach the numerical allocations. This was likely on account of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in business uncertainty as well as restrictions on mobility of people. As a result, the USCIS had selected additional registrations in August 2020 to meet its allocated numerical cap.

“The filing period for registrations selected in August ended on Nov. 16, 2020. Some petitioners indicated a start date after Oct. 1, 2020. We rejected or administratively closed those petitions because they were based on registrations submitted during the initial registration period but indicated a start date after Oct. 1, 2020. Upon reconsideration, we no longer believe that the regulations required us to reject or administratively close those petitions,” said the USCIS in a statement.

The agency said that it had received enough petitions to meet the mandated 65,000 H-1B visa quote (with an additional 20,000 for Masters students) only in February 2021, months before the visa application process for the next fiscal would get underway. In contrast, earlier this month, the USCIS said that it had received over 300,000 H-1B petitions for FY2022.


In 2020, the agency had implemented an electronic registration process for the H-1B cap. It said that this could have been another reason for the discrepancy in the number of petitions filed.