The US Citizenship and Immigration Services have started accepting applications for H-1B visas, a step further would favor Indian IT professionals who are intending to work in the United States.

The applications are being accepted for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2010, and the limitations for the applications have been kept to 65,000. In addition, the first 20,000 applications who hold US master’s degree or higher than that, are excluded from the H-1B cap.

Till now, no date has been fixed for the submission of petitions. Therefore, one can speculate that the process would take some time to implement properly.

According to an official media release, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services would audit the quantity of petitions received and then acquaint the masses of the timeline on which it received the required applications to meet the H-1B cap.

In addition, the continued unemployment would be one of the crucial factors to play a role in leading to a much longer time to fill up the pool of H-1B visas. The release also confirmed that the USCIS will not receive refused cap-subject petitions, in addition to those received after the final receipt date.

Also, till the time span of December 31, 2014, petitions filed by beneficiaries in Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands or Guam are freed from the cap. All in all, the news of taking the H-1B petitions would serve a great boom for overseas workers planning to work in the U.S. in specialty professions.