USCIS has posted an update of the amount of H-1B petitions the federal agency has received. As of September 25, 2009, roughly 46,700 H-1B cap-subject petitions and 20,000 H-1B petitions that qualify for the advanced degree cap exemption have been received by USCIS. A total of 65,000 H-1B visas are available for this fiscal year.

In previous years, USCIS received large amounts of H-1B petitions. In many cases the agency stopped accepting these petitions days or weeks after the initial acceptance date. This year, however, due to the economic recession, the amount of filed petitions is much lower. On April 17, 2009, in their first public notification about this year’s H-1B program, USCIS announced they had received roughly 43,000 H-1B petitions and 20,000 that qualified for the advanced degree cap exemption.