FY2027 H1B cap registration closed on March 19, 2026. Results are expected by March 31. If your employer registered you, you are now waiting. But before you wait, there is one question worth asking: do you know what wage level your employer filed at?
It matters more this year than any previous year. FY2027 is the first lottery cycle where wage levels actually determine how many entries you get. Not marginally. By a factor of four. Level I gets one entry. Level IV gets four entries into the same 85,000-slot cap. Two candidates can receive identical job offers from similar companies and walk into the lottery with a 4x difference in odds based entirely on where their employer's office is located.
How the Wage-Weighted System Actually Works
The mechanics are straightforward. USCIS assigns lottery entries based on the prevailing wage level associated with each registration:
- Level I (entry-level, bottom 17th percentile for the role and MSA): 1 lottery entry
- Level II (below median): 2 lottery entries
- Level III (above median): 3 lottery entries
- Level IV (top wage tier, 67th percentile and above): 4 lottery entries
The 85,000-cap does not change. The total registrations submitted do not shrink. What changes is that high-wage registrations are drawn more frequently before low-wage registrations. In practice, this means the effective selection rate for Level I is significantly lower than for Level IV in any cycle where registrations exceed the cap, which every recent cycle has.
Based on FY2026 registration volumes and the wage distribution of 551,000 filings in our database, rough estimated selection rates this cycle are: Level I around 8-12%, Level II around 18-22%, Level III around 28-35%, Level IV around 42-48%. These are estimates. USCIS does not publish selection rates by wage level.
The Geography Effect Most Candidates Missed
Here is the part that caught a lot of people off guard this cycle. The wage level is not determined by your salary alone. It is determined by how your salary compares to the prevailing wage for your role in your specific metropolitan statistical area (MSA). That comparison produces a different wage level depending on where your employer's office is.
Consider two software engineers receiving $120,000 offers for similar roles at two different companies. One is located in Omaha, Nebraska. One is located in San Francisco. In Omaha, $120,000 for a software developer may sit at Level III or Level IV of the prevailing wage scale for that MSA. In San Francisco, the same $120,000 may register as Level I or Level II because San Francisco prevailing wages for tech roles are dramatically higher.
Same salary. Same role type. Two candidates. One gets 3-4 lottery entries. One gets 1-2.
This is not a loophole. It is how the prevailing wage system is designed. The DOL sets prevailing wages by MSA and occupation code, and they vary significantly. A $120,000 offer in Austin registers differently than in New York City. Employers in lower-cost metros whose salaries are competitive in their local market file at higher wage levels, giving their employees more lottery entries.
Consulting Firms Are Structurally Disadvantaged
The employers hit hardest by the wage-weighted system are consulting firms and staffing companies, which have historically dominated H1B filing volumes. These firms typically file at Level I and Level II because their business model depends on placing workers at client sites with wage structures benchmarked to entry or mid-level prevailing wages.
In previous lottery cycles, high filing volume gave consulting firms a proportional presence in the cap. Under wage weighting, their Level I and Level II registrations now compete in a pool where a single Big Tech registration at Level IV carries four times the weight. The total share of cap slots flowing to high-volume, low-wage-level filers drops significantly.
This is intentional. The rule change was designed to prioritize high-wage H1B workers. But the practical effect for individual applicants at consulting firms is that their lottery odds are substantially lower than they would have been under the pre-FY2026 system, even if their salary is competitive within their industry.
Check your wage level before results land
Use H1BSignal's lottery calculator to look up the prevailing wage for your role and MSA. Enter your offered salary to see which wage level your employer likely filed at and what your estimated selection odds are for this cycle.
Check your lottery odds →What to Do Before March 31
Results are expected by March 31. Before then, there are two things worth doing.
First, ask your employer or your immigration attorney what wage level appears on your LCA. This is documented on the Labor Condition Application that was filed with DOL before your USCIS registration. The wage level field (Level I through IV) determines your entry count. If you do not know it, ask now. If your attorney filed it, they can tell you immediately.
Second, look up your employer's historical filing pattern on H1BSignal's company search. Companies that have filed consistently at Level III and Level IV have employees with better lottery odds and, historically, higher approval rates. Companies that file primarily at Level I tend to have both lower lottery odds this year and higher historical RFE rates. These two risks compound.
If You Are Not Selected
Not selected in the lottery does not end your options. Several paths remain:
- Cap-exempt employers — universities, nonprofits, and certain research institutions are exempt from the cap entirely. No lottery, no wage weighting. If your field has academic or nonprofit equivalents, this is worth exploring.
- O-1A — for individuals with extraordinary ability in their field. A higher bar, but not subject to the cap or the lottery.
- L-1 — intracompany transfer, if your employer has international offices and you have worked abroad for at least one year.
- Re-registration next cycle — FY2028 registration will open in March 2027. A second shot at Level IV if your employer adjusts wage level or location.
The wage-weighted system is here to stay. Understanding how your salary, role, and MSA interact with the prevailing wage tables is now a core part of H1B strategy, not an afterthought.
What the Data Showed This Cycle
Our database covers 551,000 LCA filings from FY2020-2025. Looking at wage level distribution across that dataset, roughly 35-40% of filings in recent years have been at Level I, around 30% at Level II, roughly 20% at Level III, and around 10-15% at Level IV.
Under the old system, those percentages translated directly into cap slot distribution. Under wage weighting, Level IV filings get four times the draw probability of Level I. In a cap where registrations exceed slots by 3-4x (which has been the case every year since FY2017), this shifts a meaningful share of cap slots from the high-volume, low-wage-level filers toward the smaller group of Level IV registrants.
The immigrants most affected are those working at companies where the H1B filing culture is high-volume and entry-level wage. They are not doing anything wrong. Their employers file legally and within the prevailing wage rules. But the lottery now structurally disadvantages them relative to candidates at companies filing at the top of the wage scale.
That is the data. Results by March 31.