The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of Labor (DOL), announced that it expects to make an additional 64,716 H-2B temporary non-agricultural worker visas available for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, on top of the congressionally mandated 66,000 H-2B visas that are available each fiscal year.
- These additional H-2B visas represent the maximum permitted under the authority provided by Congress and are identical to the additional temporary visas provided in FY 2024.
- DHS, in coordination with DOL, has authorized supplemental cap numbers in FY 2017, FY 2018, FY 2019, FY 2021, FY 2022, FY 2023, and FY 2024 in accordance with the time-limited statutory authority granted for each of those fiscal years by Congress.
Consistent with prior years, the Department is publicly announcing its plans to make these supplemental visas available early in FY 2025—just as it did in FY 2023 and FY 2024—to ensure American businesses with workforce needs are able to plan ahead and find the seasonal and other temporary workers they need. At the same time, DHS and DOL have put in place robust protections for American and foreign workers alike, including by ensuring that employers first seek out and recruit American workers for the jobs to be filled, as the H-2B program requires, and that foreign workers hired are not exploited by unscrupulous employers.
More Information about the H-2B Visa
- The H-2B supplemental rule includes an allocation of 20,000 visas to workers from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, or Costa Rica and a separate allocation of 44,716 supplemental visas that would be available to returning workers who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years.
- The regulation would allocate the supplemental visas for returning workers between the first half and second half of the fiscal year to account for the need for additional seasonal and other temporary workers over the course of the year, with a portion of the second half allocation reserved to meet the demand for workers during the peak summer season.
- The H-2B visa program permits eligible employers to hire noncitizens to perform temporary non-agricultural labour or services in the United States. The employment must be of a temporary nature, such as a one-time occurrence, seasonal need, peak load need, or intermittent need.
- Employers seeking H-2B workers must take a series of steps to test the US labour market. They must obtain certification from DOL that there are not enough US workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to perform the temporary work for which they seek a prospective foreign worker, and that employing H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers.
- The maximum period of stay in H-2B classification is three years. A person who has held H-2B nonimmigrant status for a total of three years must depart and remain outside of the United States for an uninterrupted period of three months before seeking readmission as an H-2B nonimmigrant.
Erickson Insights & Analysis
Erickson Immigration Group will continue to monitor developments and share updates as more news is available. Please contact your employer or EIG attorney if you have questions about anything we’re reporting above or case-specific questions.