The US has closed H-2B filings for winter season jobs starting before April

On 11 September US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it had received enough petitions to fill the H-2B cap for the first half of fiscal year 2027, the 33,000 places reserved for seasonal workers whose jobs start between 1 October 2026 and 31 March 2027. The cut-off had already passed. USCIS set 4 September 2026 as the final receipt date, and says it will reject any new cap-subject petition received after that date if it requests a start date before 1 April 2027. If you were hoping to work a US winter season on an H-2B visa at a ski resort, a hotel or a holiday-season hospitality job, that route is closed for this winter unless your employer already filed.

Background

H-2B is the US visa for temporary non-agricultural work. It exists for employers with a seasonal, peak-load, intermittent or one-off need, and in practice it is dominated by landscaping, hospitality, seafood processing, amusement and construction. Congress caps it at 66,000 visas per fiscal year, and that number is split deliberately down the middle: 33,000 for workers starting in the first half of the fiscal year, 1 October to 31 March, and 33,000 for the second half, 1 April to 30 September. The split exists so that summer-season employers are not squeezed out by winter-season ones filing first. Demand has run past supply for years, which is why the first-half allocation now regularly fills weeks before the fiscal year it covers has even begun. Places left unused in the first half roll forward into the second half of the same fiscal year, but unused visas do not carry over into the next fiscal year at all.

What exactly changed

The operative date is 4 September 2026. USCIS treats that as the final receipt date for new cap-subject H-2B petitions requesting an employment start date before 1 April 2027, so a petition that arrived on 5 September for a November start is rejected rather than queued. The 11 September announcement confirmed what the receipt numbers had already determined. The second half of the fiscal year remains open: the separate 33,000 allocation for start dates from 1 April 2027 is untouched, and employers will file against it in the new year. Petitions that are not counted against the cap are also unaffected, since the cap governs new cap-subject workers rather than every H-2B filing.

No extra visas have been announced for 2027

It is worth being precise about what USCIS did not say, because this is where expectations usually go wrong. In fiscal year 2026 the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor announced a temporary rule on 30 January, published in the Federal Register on 3 February 2026, adding up to 64,716 supplemental H-2B visas on top of the statutory 66,000. Those extra places were not automatic and not open to everyone: they rested on a specific authorisation Congress wrote into section 101 of the Continuing Appropriations Act, and they were available only to employers who attested that they were suffering or would suffer irreparable harm without the workers. Nothing equivalent has been announced for fiscal year 2027. A repeat needs both a fresh congressional authorisation and a fresh rule, so it is not something to plan a season around.

Who it affects, and what to do now

H-2B petitions are filed by the US employer, not by the worker, so the people who lose out are the ones with no control over the timing: the returning seasonal worker whose employer left the paperwork late, and the first-time applicant who lined up a resort or hospitality job for December. The first thing to do is ask your employer directly whether a petition was filed and receipted before 4 September, because that single fact decides whether you have a case at all. If it was not, the realistic options are a start date on or after 1 April 2027 against the second-half allocation, or a different country for this season. Do not pay anyone offering to secure an H-2B place now for a winter start, because the cap is a statutory number and USCIS has said it will reject those petitions. If April is the plan, the second-half filing window also fills quickly, so the useful conversation with an employer happens in December rather than March.

If you are already in the US

Workers currently in the United States in H-2B status are in a different position. A petition to extend a stay or change employers is not the same thing as a new cap-subject petition, so someone mid-assignment is not affected by this announcement. The limit that does matter to you is the three-year ceiling: H-2B is a temporary work visa with a hard maximum, and after three years in the classification you must leave and remain outside the United States for at least 60 uninterrupted days before you can be readmitted as an H-2B worker. It does not accumulate towards residence. Our <a href="/country-guides/united-states">United States country guide</a> sets out the visa categories that do, and the <a href="/field-guide/work-income-reality">work and income reality</a> section of the field guide covers what seasonal work abroad actually pays and costs.