US scraps H-1B visa lottery, prioritises ‘higher-paid, higher-skilled foreign workers’

The DHS said the move would better protect the wages, working conditions, and job opportunities for American workers.

The Donald Trump-led administration has changed the regulations governing the H-1B work visa selection process, replacing the lottery system with wage and skill-based selection.

The Trump administration said it was "replacing the lottery system with wage and skill-based selection."(AP)

While announcing the decision, the US Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said it would be from now be prioritising “the allocation of visas to higher-skilled and higher-paid” foreign workers.

According to the latest notification, the DHS said the move would better protect the wages, working conditions, and job opportunities for American workers.

“The new rule replaces the random lottery for selecting visa recipients with a process that gives greater weight to those with higher skills,” the DHS said in the statement.

The new rules will be effective starting February 27, 2026, and will be applicable for the FY 2027 H-1B cap registration season. The number of H-1B visas issued annually is limited to 65,000 at present, with an additional 20,000 for US advanced degree holders.

The DHS said that the current “random selection process” had drawn criticism from different corners “for allowing unscrupulous employers to exploit it”. The department said that the lottery had resulted in “flooding” of the selection process “with lower-skilled foreign workers paid at low wages”, adding that this was a detriment to the American workforce.

“To address these concerns, the final rule will implement a weighted selection process that will increase the probability that H-1B visas are allocated to higher-skilled and higher-paid aliens while maintaining the opportunity for employers to secure H-1B workers at all wage levels,” the DHS statement said.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser said the existing random selection process of the H-1B registrations had been “exploited” and “abused” by US employers. Tragesser said that the employers had been seeking to "import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers.

“The new weighted selection will better serve Congress’ intent for the H-1B program and strengthen America’s competitiveness by incentivizing American employers to petition for higher-paid, higher-skilled foreign workers,” the USCIS spokesperson said.

Tragesser said that the Trump administration would continue to update the H-1B program with such regulatory changes “to help American businesses without allowing the abuse that was harming American workers.”

The rule is in line with key changes made by the Trump administration, like the hike in H-1B visa fee to $100,000 per visa as a condition of eligibility, the DHS said.