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2026 H-1B Lottery Odds Calculator
Calculate your H-1B lottery selection odds under the new wage-weighted system.
How We Calculate Your Selection Odds
Selection odds are calculated based on last year's lottery data (FY2026), adjusted for the new wage-weighted system.
Total Registrations
We start by taking the total lottery registrations from last year which for FY2026 was 343,981.
Wage Level Distribution
Registrations with higher wage levels get more tickets in the lottery. The distribution of registrations across wage levels is determined from USCIS FY2026 data.
Wage Level 1
1 tickets per person
40%
of registrations
Wage Level 2
2 tickets per person
42%
of registrations
Wage Level 3
3 tickets per person
11%
of registrations
Wage Level 4
4 tickets per person
7%
of registrations
Total Ticket Pool
All lottery entries are combined into one single pool. Because higher wage levels receive more entries per registration, the number of tickets in the pool is greater than the number of registrations.
Formula
Total Tickets =
(WL1 × 1) + (WL2 × 2) + (WL3 × 3) + (WL4 × 4)
where WLX are the no. of registrations in each wage level
Based on FY2026 data, USCIS needs to select ~120,141 people to fill the 85,000 available H-1B visas, accounting for denials and withdrawals.
Since higher wage levels have multiple tickets, more tickets must be drawn than there are registrations to allocate all 85,000 visas.
Formula
P(selected) = 1 - (1 - f)^w
where:
f = per-ticket probability
w = number of tickets (varies by wage level)
