Employers seeking to sponsor H-1B workers for fiscal year 2020 can begin filing petitions on April 1, 2019, for a start date of October 1, 2019. The H-1B visa is used by businesses that want to employ foreign nationals to work in a specialty occupation requiring theoretical or technical expertise. For FY 2020, cases will be considered accepted on the date the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) takes possession of the petition, not on the date the petition was postmarked.