[vsskanth]

> the registration fee during the registration period starting in March 2024, will remain $10.

Yeah, every single outsourcing provider is going to enter all their employees and market whoever is selected for on-site assignments to their customers. The cost of entry is way too low and this attracts frivolous registrations.

Previously, it used to cost thousands of dollars before to prepare a full petition and only those employers with serious job offers applied for H1B.

[bubblethink]

The lottery ticket price has always been low; you pay the full price once you win the lottery. They're de-duping applications this year (stopping people from buying multiple tickets), and the ticket price will go up next year (to somewhere in the ~$200 range). Raising the ticket price for a lottery is an ass backwards way to solve anything.

[vsskanth]

No. It was changed for FY 2020. Before that you had to pay in full beforehand with a complete petition and get refunded if you don't get selected.

It was quite effective at weeding out non-serious job offers.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/08/2019-24...

[bubblethink]

From what you linked, it looks like it was free earlier, and it became $10. "Moreover, the nominal fee would assist DHS in recovering the cost of administering the electronic registration process. "

[junar]

Parent comment is correct: They are talking about the "filing fee", which had always existed, and should not be confused with the $10 registration fee.

The situation pre-2020 was that it was more difficult to enter the H-1B lottery compared to now, because the employer had to prepare all the paper forms and write checks for at least several hundred dollars. Now, they can enter a trivial amount of information online and pay a trivial fee, and they only have to do the full filing for employees actually selected.

Here is another article describing the pre-2020 situation: https://web.archive.org/web/20221129013748/https://hackingla...

Also, a comment in the DHS final rule pretty much says the same thing as the parent comment:

> One commenter asked how the nominal fee will prevent large outsourcing companies from gaming the H–1B system, when their revenue is in the billions. A professional association stated that the addition of a $10 registration fee will not sufficiently deter speculative and/or fraudulent filings. Another commenter noted that requiring employers to pay a more substantial fee may protect employees from predatory employers and that we should include a provision barring employers from passing the fee on to their employees or garnishing it from their wages.

[lolinder]

That fee has been $10 all along—see this from last year [0]. I don't know much about this process, but the thousands of dollars must be coming from something else—probably some combination of other government fees and attorney bills.

[0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

[vsskanth]

No. You previously had to fill the entire H1B petition and pay full fees (including lawyer fees to prepare the petition) just to enter the H1B lottery. Your fees get refunded if you do not get selected in the lottery. You're still out lawyer fees though.

The $10 fee to enter your name and later fill the entire petition is a fairly recent change

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/08/2019-24...

[lolinder]

Fair, but this isn't a new change this year. If the catastrophe that you say will happen was going to happen, we should already be seeing it since at least 2020.

[vsskanth]

Yeah it's been pretty bad ever since then. You can see the massive rise in registrations from 2020.

https://redbus2us.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/H1B-Visa-Re...