Even though, there were reports that the demand for the US H-1B visa among Indians is declining over the last couple of years, new report says that Indian professionals accounted for the one-third of the H-1B visas holders last year. Until July 2, 2010, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services received only 24,200 H-1B visa applications for the second consecutive year.

About 10,400 petitions have been filed with the USCIS under the cap for individuals with advanced degrees. The category’s limit is 20,000. Reportedly, in the first week of when the USCIS started to accept applications, it had received just 13,500 petitions under the general category and 5,600 in the advanced degree category. As of May 14, the total number of applications received was 19,000 in the former category and 8,100 in the latter.

Last year, a total of 123,002 US H-1B visas were issued to Indians, out of the total 339,243 petitions filed. The figures show 36.3 percent of the total visas issued to overseas professionals in 2009 was for Indians. But, if we compare the figures with that of 2007, we can be able to point out how much the figures decline last year. In 2009, the number of Indians issued the visas fell by more than 1/5th since 2007.

The declination in the demand of US H-1B visa among India professionals between the years 2007 and 2009 owe to the global economic meltdown. Regardless of the drop of over 34,000 visas in two years, Indians still remain the leading community to receive the maximum number of the most coveted US H-1B visa. In the year 2007, a total of 157,613 Indians were issued with the H-1B visas and in 2008 the number fell to 154,725.