US Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting H-1B petitions on April 1 and expects to receive more petitions than the H-1B cap during the first five business days of this year’s program. Federal legislation limits the amount of H-1B visas to 65,000 for fiscal year 2016, plus 20,000 more reserved for workers with a US master’s degree or higher, for a total of 85,000.

If USCIS receives an excess of petitions during the first five business days, the agency will use a lottery system to randomly select the number of petitions required to meet the cap. USCIS will reject all unselected petitions that are subject to the cap as well as any petitions received after the cap has closed.

USCIS used the lottery for the FY 2015 program last April when the number of visas requested exceeded the annual caps in the first week.