U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued an update of H-1B petition processing. As of May 12, 2006, USCIS has accepted 34,808 cases against the FY 2007 cap of 58,200 (65,000 minus 6,800 set aside for Chile and Singapore) and 4,638 petitions against the advanced degree cap of 20,000. USCIS estimates the number of petitions needed to reach the cap, allowing for denials and revocations, is 61,000 for H-1Bs and 21,000 for advanced degree H-1Bs. Effectively, almost two-thirds of the available H-1Bs have already been used in the first six weeks of the filing period which started April 1, 2006.
Since cases are accepted against the cap based on the date the petition is docketed at USCIS, filing cases as quickly as possible is crucial to obtaining H-1B status for FY 2007.