U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the congressionally mandated H-2B visa cap for the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2027 has been reached as of the September 4, 2026 deadline. This date covers applicants seeking to start work before April 1, 2027. The regular semi-annual limit is 33,000 workers for this period. The second half of fiscal year 2027 (covering start dates from April 1, 2027, through September 30, 2027) will receive its own statutory allocation of 33,000 visas. Petitions for the summer season typically open for filing in early January. Based on previous years, demand is extremely high, and the regular second-half cap historically fills entirely within a few months.
In recent years, Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) authority to issue temporary "cap relief" for supplemental visas. In FY 2026, an additional 64,716 supplemental visas were allowed. The vast majority of these supplemental slots are strictly reserved for "returning workers"—individuals who have already held an H-2B visa within the last three fiscal years.
The H-2B Workforce Coalition, of which LICA is a member, has sent a letter urging the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Labor to make an additional 64,716 supplemental H-2B visas available in FY 2027. The letter says these visas will provide employers with the ability to better handle their labor challenges, as they will have additional certainty regarding their workforce planning decisions in the coming months. The letter thanks the Administration for expanding the cap this year and stresses that the dire shortage of seasonal labor continues to be a problem. The letter points out that a recent economic study on the impacts of the H-2B program on domestic workers concluded that, "each additional H-2B worker in a local area is associated with the employment of 2.7 to 4.9 additional full-time equivalent U.S. workers." The study also indicated there is no evidence of H-2B workers having an adverse impact on U.S. workers but rather the study found increased wage growth for U.S. workers in areas that have more H-2B workers.