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If you’re an Indian professional planning to apply for an H-1B visa in 2026, everything you thought you knew about the process just changed.
On December 23, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the most significant structural change to the H-1B visa program in decades.
The random lottery that has determined the fate of hundreds of thousands of Indian applicants every year — the system that treated a ₹25 LPA fresher the same as a ₹1.5 Crore senior architect — is officially dead.
Starting February 27, 2026, just in time for the FY 2027 H-1B cap registration season opening March 4, the random lottery is being replaced by a wage-weighted selection system that fundamentally changes who gets selected and who gets left behind.
But that’s not the only change.
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The Trump administration has also imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions — a cost that has sent shockwaves through the Indian IT industry and could make sponsoring H-1B workers financially unviable for many companies.
Between the weighted lottery, the $100,000 fee, stricter social media vetting, and the new “Visa Integrity Fee” under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2026 H-1B landscape is almost unrecognizable compared to even two years ago.
And yet, for the right applicants — those who understand the new rules and position themselves correctly — these changes actually increase your chances of selection.
This guide breaks down everything: what changed, why it changed, who wins, who loses, and exactly what you need to do right now to maximize your odds in the March 2026 lottery.
[NEXT PAGE: The New Weighted Lottery Explained — How It Actually Works →]
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