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American businesses in 2026 experienced a notable turnaround in selection rates for high-skilled foreign workers through the visa programme, after years of steadily worsening odds in the annual H-1B lottery.

H-1B Visa Approval Rate Seen A Record High At 75%

In recent years, the approval rate of the highly sought-after visas has jumped to its highest levels and there are several instances where H-1B visa approval rate has reached 75%, with selections crossing 50% across the board.

They could achieve this turnaround, mostly because of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies that re-shaped the H-1B visa programme and slashed the pool of applicants.

It appears that Bloomberg Law, leading immigration firms and employers have seen significantly higher success rates in the lottery for the speciality occupation visa program as a recent report in a US news outlet.

Earlier, the chances of selection hovered around one in three, roughly 33%, but now it has changed as several top immigration law firms and service providers reported rates well over 50% across the board. This year.

For instance consider the case of business immigration law firm BAL, where some clients achieved selection rates exceeding 60%.

This is not the only firm as other immigration law firms, including Ogletree Deakins and Erickson Immigration Group, along with Boundless Immigration, reported improved outcomes for H-1B approvals as compared to recent years.

The story is much better for high-wage positions and applicants with master’s degrees as for them the rates climbed above 75% in some cases.

How Did This Happen?

If you are wondering about this, this boost in the approval rates did not happen by chance or accident, rather, it is the impact of Trump administration policies that have reshaped the H-1B program reportedly.

It appears that the Trump administration introduced a new weighted lottery system specifically designed to favour higher-paid and more senior workers.  They have considered the most powerful factor in raising selection rates was a sharp reduction in the overall pool of applicants.

And the main driver behind this smaller pool was a $100,000 fee imposed by the White House on all new H-1B workers hired from outside the US.

As expected, these steep charges made international recruiting prohibitively expensive for many employers.

In response, this has effectively halted most new hiring from abroad by universities and hospitals, sectors that had long relied on the H-1B visa program.

Similarly, tech companies and other businesses which were subjected to the annual visa cap largely opted out of sponsoring workers from overseas. So far, this is the group that accounted for about 40% of new H-1B employees in recent years, as per the report.

This has directly affected the total number of lottery registrations which has dropped dramatically.

It seems that the previous randomised system was replaced with a new weighted framework that gives workers up to four attempts to apply, depending on their wage level.

With this overhaul, they could prioritize higher-paid and more experienced roles, steering visas toward the most skilled and highly compensated individuals, instead of less experienced and lower-paid freshers.