Flat-Fee H-1B Visa Attorneys

Lawhive’s H-1B Visa Services

What the H-1B Visa Is

The H-1B is a specialty-occupation nonimmigrant work visa, and it’s the most common path for US employers to sponsor foreign professionals in fields like software engineering, medicine, finance, architecture, and academic research.

To qualify as a specialty occupation, the position itself must normally require at least a US bachelor’s degree — or the foreign equivalent — in a field directly related to the job duties. A generic 4-year degree isn’t enough; US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) wants to see that the role demands specialized knowledge in a particular discipline.

The beneficiary must hold that qualifying degree, an equivalent foreign degree, or a combination of education and progressive experience. Under the long-standing three-for-one rule, 3 years of specialized work experience can substitute for 1 year of university study, which lets seasoned professionals without a finished degree still qualify in the right cases.

Lawhive’s Role in H-1B Visa Petitioning

Lawhive’s experienced US immigration attorneys serve sponsoring employers and beneficiaries nationwide on a flat-fee basis, so you’ll know what an H-1B visa attorney costs before any work begins.

Because immigration is federal, an H-1B visa attorney can represent employers and beneficiaries nationwide — there’s no separate state license requirement for federal immigration practice. That matters when your headquarters are in one state, your hire is moving from another, and the worksite sits somewhere else entirely.

The Annual Cap and Registration Lottery

Most H-1B petitions are subject to an annual numerical limit set by Congress. The cap shapes filing strategy, timing, and which candidates a sponsor can realistically pursue in a given fiscal year.

The 65,000 Regular Cap and 20,000 Master’s Exemption

Each fiscal year, USCIS makes 65,000 H-1B visas available under the regular cap, plus an additional 20,000 reserved for beneficiaries who hold a US master’s degree or higher — often called the “master’s cap exemption” or the advanced-degree exemption.

Beneficiaries with a qualifying US graduate degree get two bites at the apple: they’re first considered for the 20,000 advanced-degree allocation, and if not selected there, they’re placed back in the pool for the 65,000 regular cap.

Foreign master’s degrees don’t qualify for the exemption — only degrees from US institutions that meet USCIS’s accreditation criteria.

Beneficiary-Centric Selection Plus the New Wage-Weighting Rule

USCIS finalized the beneficiary-centric selection rule in January 2024, effective with the FY2025 cap season. That rule gave each unique beneficiary one chance at selection regardless of how many employers registered them — removing the multiple-registration gaming pattern that had distorted earlier cycles.

For the FY2027 cap and going forward, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (https://www.dhs.gov/) layered a second rule on top. The Weighted Selection Process final rule, published December 29, 2025 and effective February 27, 2026, weights each beneficiary’s single entry by the Department of Labor (DOL) (https://www.dol.gov/) prevailing wage level the sponsoring employer commits to:

• Level IV positions get four entries.
• Level III gets three entries.
• Level II gets two entries.
• Level I gets one entry.

Selection chances now track the wage tier of the offered position, not just luck. The one-chance-per-beneficiary principle still holds — wage level just multiplies that one beneficiary’s odds.

The FY2027 Registration Window

USCIS announces the exact dates each cycle, but historically, the electronic registration window opens in early March and closes in late March. Selected registrants then file the full Form I-129 (https://www.uscis.gov/i-129) petition during the April–June filing window, with cases counted against the fiscal year that starts October 1.

The FY2027 cycle is the first to run under the Weighted Selection Process — confirm the registration dates and the current weighting tiers with your H-1B attorney at filing, and Lawhive’s digital-first case portal pushes real-time updates the moment a date or selection notification posts.

LCA (Form ETA-9035) and Prevailing Wage

Before USCIS will even look at an I-129 H-1B petition, the sponsoring employer must file and certify a Labor Condition Application — Form ETA-9035 (https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/Form%20ETA-9035_exp%2010.31.2027.pdf) — with the US Department of Labor. The LCA is an employer attestation, not a USCIS form, and it’s the wage-and-working-conditions backbone of the H-1B program.

On the LCA, the employer certifies that the offered wage is at or above the prevailing wage for the occupation in the specific geographic area where the beneficiary will work, and that the wage will also meet or exceed what the employer pays similarly situated US employees.

The employer further attests that hiring the H-1B worker won’t adversely affect the working conditions of similarly employed US workers, that there’s no strike or lockout in the occupational classification at the worksite, and that notice of the filing has been provided to existing employees.

Prevailing wage data comes from DOL’s Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (https://www.bls.gov/oes/), broken into four wage levels that track the role’s complexity and the beneficiary’s experience. LCAs are worksite-specific, so a remote hire, a multi-office employer, or a planned relocation can trigger additional filings.

An experienced H-1B sponsorship attorney scopes the worksite picture up front to avoid mid-petition surprises.

Duration, Extensions, and AC21

A new H-1B is issued for an initial period of up to 3 years, and it can be extended for another 3 — a 6-year maximum under the standard rules. The clock counts time physically spent in H-1B status; time outside the US for a full year or more can “recapture” unused days back onto the 6-year cap.

The American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act (AC21) (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-106publ313/pdf/PLAW-106publ313.pdf), enacted in 2000, opens the door to extensions beyond the 6-year cap when a beneficiary is well into the green-card process. Two of the most common AC21 paths:

• Three-year extensions for beneficiaries whose I-140 immigrant petition has been approved but who can’t adjust status because of a per-country backlog in their preference category.
• One-year extensions for beneficiaries whose PERM labor certification or I-140 has been pending with DOL or USCIS for 365 days or more, available year by year until the case is adjudicated.

AC21 portability also lets H-1B workers change employers under specific conditions, and it preserves priority dates across employers in the green-card process — both meaningful when a long backlog stretches the timeline.

A flat-fee H-1B visa attorney can map the AC21 trigger dates against your 6-year cap at the start of the engagement so nothing slips between renewal cycles.

Cap-Exempt Employers

Not every H-1B petition runs through the lottery. Federal law exempts certain employer categories from the annual numerical cap, which means qualifying institutions can file H-1B petitions year-round without registering during the spring window. The exempt categories are:

• Institutions of higher education and their affiliated or related nonprofit entities — typically universities, university hospitals, and university-affiliated research foundations.
• Nonprofit research organizations whose primary mission is basic or applied research.
• Governmental research organizations at the federal, state, or local level.

Cap-exempt employment is a planning tool, not a workaround. The exempt employer must directly employ the beneficiary, or the beneficiary must perform work that directly furthers the exempt institution’s essential purpose if the role is at a third-party worksite.

Concurrent employment — holding a cap-exempt H-1B alongside a cap-subject H-1B — is also possible in the right facts, and it’s a route worth exploring when a candidate didn’t make the lottery.

What Lawhive’s Flat-Fee H-1B Service Covers

Lawhive’s flat-fee H-1B engagement is built around the milestones that actually drive the case:

• Eligibility analysis for the beneficiary and the role.
• LCA preparation and certification with DOL.
• Electronic registration during cap season.
• Full I-129 petition assembly with supporting evidence and the specialty-occupation memo.
• RFE response if USCIS asks for more.
• Consular processing or change-of-status coordination after approval.

AC21 extensions, amendments for worksite or material changes, and H-4 dependent filings are scoped as add-ons at fixed prices. Everything lives in a digital-first portal that gives the sponsoring employer and the beneficiary real-time status updates, document upload, and a shared message thread with the assigned H-1B visa attorney.