I hope you found my H-1B receipt notice post helpful to you while you waited with bated breath to find out whether yours was selected or not. Congrats on being one of the lucky ones! So, now that you got your receipt, you are probably wondering when your petition will be approved. I’m happy to report that we received our first approvals in the mail today!! and a few RFEs too.
What happens next and how long will it take? It depends:
- Since all petitions are regular processing this year, if there is no RFE issued, most applicants can expect to hear back from USCIS by October. This is just based on our experience in previous years, there is no set timeframe from USCIS. In general, they do try to complete all the cases by September 30th, at least for masters cap applicants because they know that the cap gap OPT extension ends on September 30th.
- If an RFE is issued and your petition is in regular processing, it can take up to 60 days to get the result after the response to the RFE is received by USCIS. So, it is entirely possible that a petition may continue to be pending well into November and even December (In fact, we had many still pending from last year at the time we were preparing to file petitions this year). Again, this is mainly dependent on how quickly the RFE is responded to. If premium processing becomes available again as is expected in September, the petition may be able to be upgraded to premium processing after the RFE response is received by USCIS.
I see many people asking if the petitions are processed in any particular order. Since they are all received practically on the same day, there really is no first in first out order, which is how petitions would normally be processed. In this case, the actual order of approval really depends on which officer is handling the case, how many cases they have, whether an RFE is necessary, and how fast they review them. There is really no rhyme or reason to the order petitions are approved (so don’t look up random receipt numbers around yours to see if they are approved or not, it really does not provide any useful information!).
As of 1/1/19 we still have about 5% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS. The American Immigration Lawyers Association reached out to USCIS to confirm the status of these pending petitions. USCIS indicated that it is unable to provide a timeframe for initial review of such cases; however, USCIS noted that the agency is “working diligently” to process these cases “as soon as possible.”
As of 12/18/18 we still have about 5% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
As of 11/29/18 we still have about 7% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
As of 11/14/18 we still have about 9% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
As of 10/30/18 we still have about 10% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
As of 10/22/18 we still have about 12% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
As of 10/18/18 we still have about 14% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
As of 10/8/18 we still have about 18% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS.
Sorry for the long delay! It’s hard to find time to crunch the numbers. I can tell you that as of 9/26/18 we still have 22% of our cases with no action being taken by USCIS. All of these cases that have had no action taken yet are pending with the California Service Center.
As of 8/7/18 we’ve received approvals in 12% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 48% of our selected cases 
. The remaining 38% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 8/1/18 we’ve received approvals in 10% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 48% of our selected cases . The remaining 41% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 7/10/18 we’ve received approvals in 8% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 27% of our selected cases. The remaining 65% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 7/3/18 we’ve received approvals in 8% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 25% of our selected cases. The remaining 67% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 6/26/18 we’ve received approvals in 6% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 24% of our selected cases. The remaining 70% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 6/20/18 we’ve received approvals in only 5% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 18% of our selected cases. The remaining 77% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 6/12/18 we’ve received approvals in only 4% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 13% of our selected cases. The remaining 83% have not had any action taken by USCIS yet.
As of 6/4/18 we’ve received approvals in only 2% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in about 10% of our selected cases.
As of 5/23/18 we’ve received approvals in only 1% of our selected cases. We’ve received RFEs in 7% of our selected cases. That leaves 92% that have not had any action taken by USCIS yet, which is entirely expected. I anticipate that many cases will remain pending through the summer and may need to be upgraded to premium processing if and when that becomes available.