Refiling Allowed for Rejected 2021 H1B Petitions Based on Start Date

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on June 23, 2021 that they would be allowing rejected H1B cap-subject petitions from fiscal year 2021 to be resubmitted if they were rejected solely on the basis that the requested start date was after October 1, 2020. If this is what happened to you, you can resubmit the previously filed petition (with applicable fees) to the address listed below. It’s important that these petitions are resubmitted prior to October 1, 2021.

Be sure to include the registration selection notice you received for FY 2021 and also the rejection notice or administrative closure notice along with your resubmission package.

We also encourage the use of a brightly colored coversheet indicating that you are refiling an FY 2021 H-1B cap case that was originally rejected or administratively closed solely because your petition was based on a registration submitted during the initial registration period, but you requested a start date after Oct. 1, 2020. This will help ensure that it is reviewed upon receipt.

What Happened?

With the pandemic that overshadowed most of 2020 and disturbances in the economic climate, the quota for FY2021 H1B petitions was not reached in the initial filing stage. For that reason, USCIS had to hold another H-1B lottery (August 2020) and selected more registrations from the pool. Those registrations that were selected had until Nov. 16, 2020 to file their complete petitions. On the USCIS instructions sent to these petitions, it said that they were required to mark the start date as October 1, 2020 but some petitioners assumed that they did not need to meet this requirement because their petitions were filed after October 1st so they listed the same start date as the one on their Labor Condition Application (LCA). Due to the incorrect start date, USCIS rejected them. Understanding the confusion that occurred, USCIS is allowing the individuals who received rejection notices solely for this start date reason to refile their cap-subject H1B petitions.