The final regulation issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security in December 2024 updates the H-1B programme, which will take effect on January 17, 2025.

Key changes include updated criteria for speciality occupations, clarification on qualifying degree fields, automatic cap-gap extensions for F-1 students, and faster processing timelines to help foreign workers move to H-1B status, Financial Express reports.

On December 18, 2024, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued the final rule for modernising the H-1B programme and other nonimmigrant visas, such as the L1-student visa. This final regulation is effective on January 17, 2025.

The USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) will release a revised edition of Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker to coincide with the recently published H-1B and H-2 modernisation final rules.

The new rules include:

• Revising the regulation definition and criteria for a position to be designated as a "speciality occupation"

• Clarifying that "normally" does not imply "always" under the standards of a speciality profession

• Clarifying that while the petitioner may accept a variety of qualifying degree disciplines as adequate to qualify for the post, the needed field(s) must be directly related to the job duties for the position to be considered a speciality profession.

In the final rule, the Department of Homeland Security does not remove the concept of a speciality profession but rather modifies it. These changes include deleting all references to general degree titles and defining the word "directly related."

General degrees, such as Master of Business Administration (MBA), are prohibited from meeting H-1B standards since they are not relevant to the position of study.