Yep, I should've been more clear. The 85K is annual, and H1-B visas can
potentially be in force for 6 years, so that's up to 510K. Somewhere
around another 50% are issued to entities outside the cap (education,
government, and non-profit research), so around 700K outstanding seems
reasonable. Thanks for clarifying.
On 7/2/25 7:22 AM, Ryan Petris via PLUG-discuss wrote:
Corporate H1-B visas are limited to 85,000, including 20,000 reserved
for those with an advanced degree.
Correct, however I think you're reading that as there's only allowed
to be 85,000 H1B visa holders... that's wrong. That's a YEARLY limit
for the number of NEW H1B's issued; renewals and transfers don't count
toward that limit. As of January FWD.us estimates there are 730,000
current H1B holders in the US
<https://www.fwd.us/news/h1b-visa-program/>, along with 550,000
dependents.
That's quite a lot of people, especially given the turmoil in the tech
industry over the last few years.
On Tue, Jul 1, 2025, at 8:38 PM, mike/r via PLUG-discuss wrote:
This is a Linux list, so I won't get into the politics. Corporate
H1-B visas are limited to 85,000, including 20,000 reserved for those
with an advanced degree. While recently around 600,000 visas are
requested annually (both corporate and otherwise), most are not
granted. The visas generally last for 3 years and can usually be
extended another 3 years. In my (quite dated) experience, graduates
did not have to return to their home country. Do not take any of
this as my opinion on whether it should or should not be this way.
...
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