US Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting H-1B petitions for the fiscal year 2018 cap on April 3.

The congressionally mandated cap on H-1B visas for fiscal year 2017 is 65,000 plus another 20,000 for individuals with a US master’s degree or higher.

USCIS recently announced a temporary suspension of premium processing for all H-1B petitions starting April 3 for up to six months. Premium processing allows for visas to be processed within 15 calendar days rather than months for H-1Bs, which are used by companies, including staffing firms, to bring in highly skilled individuals such as IT workers.

The agency will monitor the number of petitions received and notify the public when the H-1B cap has been met. For the past three years, the visa cap was reached within a week. USCIS received 236,000 petitions last year for H-1B visas, up 1.3% from nearly 233,000 in in 2015.