DATA REPORT · FY2026 (THROUGH Q3)
State of H-1B 2026: Filings Fell 7%, Pay Rose, and Consulting Pulled Back
By Muhammad Talha · Founder, HireSkys · October 2026 · Data: U.S. Department of Labor LCA disclosure, FY2024–FY2026
U.S. employers filed 426,952 H-1B Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) in FY2026 through Q3 — down 7.0% from the same period last year. But the headline hides the real story. The decline is not spread evenly. It is a consulting story: the big IT services firms pulled back sharply, Big Tech stayed flat, median pay rose anyway, and the employers that kept filing look very different from the ones that stopped.
Filings fell — but only against the same window
FY2026 is still partial: the data covers decisions through June 30, 2026, which is Q3 of the fiscal year. Comparing it to the full FY2025 total (572,287) would be misleading. The honest comparison is the same October-to-June window last year: 459,263 filings then, 426,952 now. That is the 7.0% decline. When Q4 (July–September 2026) decisions land, the FY2026 total will rise — but the same-period comparison is the only fair year-on-year read until then.
H-1B filings, same October–June window
1. The pullback is a consulting story, not a tech story
Group the biggest filers and the split is stark. The consulting set — Cognizant, EY, Infosys, Deloitte, TCS, Wipro, Capgemini, Accenture, HCL, LTIMindtree and Tech Mahindra — filed 31,396 cases in FY2026, down 30.6% on the same period. Its drop of roughly 13,800 accounts for about 43% of the whole market's decline. The Big Tech set — Amazon, Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Nvidia, Salesforce, ByteDance, Adobe, Netflix, OpenAI and Roblox — filed 53,316 cases, down just 0.5%. Essentially flat.
Same-period change, FY2026 vs FY2025 window
The pullback is not even uniform inside consulting. Infosys grew +16.8% on the same period and Wipro +21.1%. The damage is concentrated: TCS −55.5%, EY −38.4%, Cognizant −32.9%, Accenture −34.6%, HCL Technologies −41.4%, LTIMindtree −46.7%, Tech Mahindra −48.2%.
| Consulting firm | FY2026 cases | Same-period change |
|---|---|---|
| Cognizant | 5,799 | −32.9% |
| EY (Ernst & Young) | 5,403 | −38.4% |
| Infosys | 4,610 | +16.8% |
| Deloitte | 4,230 | −22.2% |
| Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) | 2,923 | −55.5% |
| Wipro | 1,906 | +21.1% |
| Capgemini | 1,695 | −21.9% |
| Accenture | 1,516 | −34.6% |
| HCL Technologies | 1,375 | −41.4% |
| LTIMindtree | 1,136 | −46.7% |
| Tech Mahindra | 585 | −48.2% |
Plus HCL Global Systems (211) and one tiny filer; consulting total 31,396. Grouping is the report's own analyst grouping, listed here so it can be checked.
2. Sponsor trajectories: cliffs, and quiet climbers
Same-period comparisons — FY2026 through Q3 against the same months of FY2025 — show who fell off a cliff and who climbed quietly. TCS fell 55.5% and Cognizant 32.9%; EY fell 38.4% and Microsoft 30.4%. On the other side, Nvidia climbed 74.3% and Tesla 25.4% on the same basis, Amazon rose 5.1% and Apple 17.6%. The table below still shows full-year FY2024 and FY2025 totals for context, but the FY2026 column is through Q3 only — compare it with the Same-period column, not with the full years.
| Sponsor (FY2026 rank) | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026* | Median wage | LCA cert. rate | Same-period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 21,181 | 22,809 | 19,937 | $158,000 | 99.98% | +5.1% |
| 8,912 | 8,787 | 7,389 | $193,000 | 99.40% | −6.3% | |
| Cognizant | 11,485 | 11,164 | 5,799 | $111,030 | 99.93% | −32.9% |
| Apple | 3,725 | 6,230 | 5,633 | $171,600 | 99.75% | +17.6% |
| EY (Ernst & Young) | 9,953 | 10,305 | 5,403 | $155,468 | 97.93% | −38.4% |
| Meta (Facebook) | 5,958 | 6,420 | 5,151 | $214,032 | 99.98% | −7.5% |
| Microsoft | 9,344 | 9,193 | 5,107 | $177,000 | 100.00% | −30.4% |
| Infosys | 5,961 | 5,840 | 4,610 | $92,581 | 99.61% | +16.8% |
| Deloitte | 4,933 | 6,878 | 4,230 | $129,900 | 99.57% | −22.2% |
| TCS | 9,700 | 7,881 | 2,923 | $92,394 | 98.94% | −55.5% |
* FY2026 is through Q3 (decisions through June 30, 2026). The top 10 together hold 66,182 filings (15.5% of all); the top 100 hold 33.6%; the top 1,000 hold 56.0%.
One caution on Infosys: its full-year totals fall (5,840 → 4,610) while its same-period change is positive (+16.8%). That means Infosys files heavily in Q4 (July–September). For seasonal filers like this, only the same-period comparison is meaningful — full-year comparisons mislead until Q4 lands.
3. Fewer filings, higher pay
The median offered wage across all FY2026 H-1B filings is $125,000, up from $117,600 in the same window last year (+6.3%) — while filings fell 7.0%. The full distribution moved up with it: the 25th percentile sits at $95,110, the 75th at $163,550, and the 90th at $207,746. Only one filing in ten offers below $76,357.
Offered-wage distribution, FY2026 H-1B filings
Part of the rise is mix shift, not just raises. The wage-level mix moved up a rung: among filings that carry a prevailing-wage level, Level I (entry) shrank from 21.8% to 19.4%, while Level IV (fully competent / senior) grew from 15.7% to 19.6%. Employers filed fewer entry-level roles and more senior ones. That also fits what came next: the FY2027 lottery gives higher wage levels more entries, so senior-heavy filing is now worth more in the lottery itself.
| Prevailing-wage level | FY2025 window | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Level I (entry) | 21.8% | 19.4% |
| Level II | 41.8% | 40.0% |
| Level III | 20.2% | 20.5% |
| Level IV (senior) | 15.7% | 19.6% |
Shares are of filings that carry a wage level. Across all FY2026 filings: Level II 36.1%, Level III 18.4%, Level IV 17.6%, Level I 17.5%, no level reported 9.9%, N/A 0.4%.
4. Titles: generic roles down, employer-specific titles up
The generic titles fell hard: Software Engineer 44,549 → 40,003 (−10.2%), Software Developer 18,605 → 15,125 (−18.7%), Software Development Engineer 7,578 → 5,428 (−28.4%), Architect 3,777 → 1,876 (−50.3%), Accountants and Auditors 2,640 → 1,282 (−51.4%). The gainers are employer-specific labels: Software Dev Engineer — Amazon's title — more than doubled, 2,833 → 6,325 (+123.3%). Computer Programmer rose 89.4%, Technology Consultant 69.9%, Research Scientist 18.6%, Occupational Therapist 44.5%, Data Scientist 5.0%. Title data is noisy — the same job wears different labels at different employers — so the robust read is the aggregate: software titles overall down, healthcare and research titles up.
One popular claim does not survive the data. AI-titled hiring is tiny: the exact title “Machine Learning Engineer” went 1,753 → 1,857, and all AI/ML-named titles combined are roughly 0.6–0.7% of filings, scattered across about 200 variant strings. AI hiring hides inside Software Engineer, Data Scientist and Research Scientist titles. The AI proxy in this data is employer growth — Nvidia, OpenAI, Apple — not job titles.
| Top titles, FY2026 (normalized) | Cases | Median wage | LCA cert. rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 40,003 | $151,000 | 98.39% |
| Software Developer | 15,125 | $112,923 | 98.00% |
| Manager | 9,167 | $168,842 | 98.52% |
| Engineer | 7,294 | $135,000 | 98.03% |
| Data Engineer | 6,793 | $124,000 | 97.82% |
| Software Dev Engineer | 6,325 | $162,600 | 99.98% |
| Associate | 6,105 | $140,000 | 98.62% |
| Data Scientist | 5,840 | $135,000 | 98.24% |
| Assistant Professor | 5,703 | $110,250 | 97.60% |
| Software Development Engineer | 5,428 | $160,000 | 99.26% |
Titles are normalized groups: the raw string “Software Engineer” alone is 20,350 filings; the normalized group is 40,003.
5. Geography is stable — no state migration story
The map barely moved. California still takes 19.6% of filings (83,484), then Texas 14.8% (63,098), New York 8.6% (36,808) and Washington 6.6% (28,131). The largest share shift anywhere is California's +0.9 percentage points; New Jersey slipped 0.5 points, Texas 0.4. Whatever changed in FY2026, it was about which employers file — not where the jobs sit.
6. Denials are not a story; certification keeps rising
The FY2026 LCA certification rate is 97.84% (417,721 certified, counting Certified-Withdrawn as certified). Denied: 2,235 (0.52%). Withdrawn: 6,996 (1.64%). The denial rate has fallen three years running — 0.74% → 0.61% → 0.52% — while certification rose 97.60% → 97.78% → 97.84%. The only denial outlier among large filers is Ford at 2.71% (19 of 702); every other employer above 500 cases sits at 0.39% or below. Denials by state simply follow volume (California 418, Texas 277, New York 239). The honest thesis: the bottleneck moved from the Department of Labor to USCIS. DOL certification got easier while USCIS-side demand collapsed — which is exactly what the next section shows.
7. Churn, cap-exempt shelter, and the industry underneath
While giants shrank, new filers kept entering: 26,496 employer groups in FY2026 were absent from the same window last year, filing 48,243 cases — 11.3% of all FY2026 filings. The largest is TT Commerce & Global Services (1,351), followed by Rocket Limited Partnership (265) and LTM (218). The market is churning, not just shrinking. (Caveat: “new” means absent from that window; some may have filed in July–September 2025 or under a different group name.)
The cap-exempt corner is a different world. The flagged cap-exempt employers — 3,863 groups, 40,090 cases (9.4%) — are universities and hospitals: University of Michigan (590, $72,515), Mass General Brigham (435, $86,424), Stanford (398, $105,000), Johns Hopkins (398, $75,924), Mayo Clinic (374, $89,253). Their pay runs far below tech — and they are insulated from the cap lottery and were excluded from the proposed $103,265 fee. That shelter is structural, not cyclical. The cap-exempt flag here is heuristic (industry codes plus name words), not a confirmed legal determination.
Underneath it all, one industry dominates. By NAICS code, Custom Computer Programming Services (541511) alone accounts for 90,723 filings — 21.2% of everything. With Computer Systems Design (541512, 26,905), IT services codes are 117,628 filings, 27.6% of the program. Colleges and universities (611310) follow at 24,267; general merchandise retail (455219, the Amazon/Walmart code) at 20,972; software publishers (513210) at 11,664. The program's center of gravity is IT services — exactly the segment pulling back.
8. The wider picture confirms the direction
Running alongside the LCA window, the USCIS side pointed the same way — harder. USCIS received 343,981 eligible FY2026 cap registrations, down 26.9% from 470,342 in FY2025, and selected 118,660 beneficiaries (35.3%, up from 29% and 24.8% the two years before — fewer entries, better odds). Notably, the number of unique employers rose to about 57,600 from 52,700: more employers, fewer registrations. The cap was reached July 18, 2025, with no second lottery. USCIS attributes the drop partly to anti-fraud enforcement under the beneficiary-centric selection system.
The $100,000 fee — which applies to certain new petitions for workers abroad, not to LCAs — hit consular petitions hardest: the National Foundation for American Policy calculates that initial consular H-1B petitions fell 91.2% (13,823 → 1,212) in the first eight months of the fee, with 13 of 30 companies down 85% or more. As of February 2026 only about 85 petitioners had actually paid; the September 2026 extension proclamation cites just over 700 payments. The fee is currently blocked — vacated June 8, 2026 in Massachusetts, enjoined September 30, 2026 in California — and the proposed $103,265 fee is not in effect. Fee-subject petitions filed without payment are now being approved. Our $100K fee status page tracks this as the single source of truth.
After the window closed, the direction accelerated. A Congressional Research Service report (“H-1B Executive Actions in 2026,” October 14, 2026) shows FY2027 lottery registrations collapsing at the same firms: Cognizant zero (from 3,752), Infosys 759 (from 8,886, −91%), TCS 284 (from 5,955, −95%). Proclamation 11069, published in the Federal Register on September 23, 2026, puts the largest staffing firms' combined registrations down about 92% (24,946 → 2,055). And on October 8, 2026, the Department of Labor suspended PERM processing for TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, Cognizant and Capgemini, and for Microsoft and Adobe due to multiple active federal investigations, according to Labor Secretary Sonderling's announcement.
Three different things — do not conflate them
(1) LCA filings: this report's data — employer attestations to the Department of Labor, through June 2026. (2) Cap lottery registrations: USCIS, each March. (3) Petitions: USCIS adjudication. The $100,000 fee applies to a subset of petitions, not to LCAs — so the fee alone does not explain the LCA drop. The honest framing is coincidence plus pressure: the LCA pullback arrived alongside fee uncertainty, enforcement, and the announced FY2027 wage-weighted selection, and the FY2027 registration collapse and PERM suspension show the direction continued after this report's window. The filings showed it first.
Methodology
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC), Labor Condition Application disclosure data, FY2024–FY2026, cleaned and normalized. Analysis covers H-1B only: the FY2026 raw file contains 437,496 rows across programs, of which 426,952 are H-1B (E-3 Australian, H-1B1 Chile and H-1B1 Singapore excluded). The H-1B count matches the employer aggregate exactly, which cross-validates the pipeline.
FY2026 is partial (decisions through June 30, 2026 = Q3). Year-on-year comparisons use the same October–June window unless stated as full-year totals. “Certified” counts both “Certified” and “Certified − Withdrawn” cases. Rates in this report are LCA certification rates — the share of LCAs the Department of Labor certified — not USCIS petition approval rates, which are a different measure.
Median offered wage ($125,000) is the median across all 426,952 FY2026 H-1B filings, each filing counted once. Offered wage is the wage attested on the LCA, not verified paid salary. Employer medians are medians of offered wages within each employer's filings. Titles are normalized groups, not raw employer-supplied strings. States are worksite states. Wage levels are prevailing-wage levels; 9.9% of FY2026 filings carry no level. Consulting and Big Tech sets are this report's own analyst groupings, with members listed above so they can be checked. “New” employer groups are those absent from the FY2025 same-period window.
Naming: on this site, “2026 lottery” means the wage-weighted lottery held in 2026 for the FY2027 cap; “FY2027 lottery” is the same event. “Lottery 2028” guides cover the FY2028 cap season, expected to open in March 2027.
This report is an independent analysis. VisaTalentUSA is not affiliated with the Department of Labor, USCIS, or any employer listed. Nothing here is legal advice.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor, OFLC performance data (LCA disclosure files): dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/performance
- USCIS FY2026 cap season numbers, as summarized by Fragomen from the USCIS announcement: Fragomen — USCIS Releases Selection Numbers for the FY 2026 H-1B Cap
- Congressional Research Service, “H-1B Executive Actions in 2026” (October 14, 2026), FY2027 registration figures as reported by The Economic Times: Infosys, TCS and Cognizant cut H-1B lottery registrations (full report text via EveryCRSReport: IN12747 — H-1B Executive Actions in 2026)
- National Foundation for American Policy analysis of the $100,000 fee's effect, as reported by Financial Express: Does the math behind the proposed $103,265 H-1B fee add up?
- Presidential Proclamation 11069 (dated September 18, 2026, published in the Federal Register on September 23, 2026), combined H-1B registrations of the largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms: Federal Register, Vol. 91, No. 183 (PDF)
Explore the data yourself
Every sponsor in this report has a full profile — filings by year, salaries, top titles and states — in the sponsor database. Check any employer's wage-level mix with the wage-level tool, or find sponsors for your own title with sponsor match.
Published October 2026. Figures describe LCA decisions through June 30, 2026; FY2026 Q4 decisions will change the full-year totals when published.