As of June 11, 2010, USCIS has received 27,778 H-2B petitions toward the 47,000 petitions the federal agency aims to accept for the second half of this fiscal year. This current count includes about 26,000 approved petitions and about 1,500 pending petitions.

Currently, there is an annual H-2B cap of 66,000 per fiscal year, with 33,000 allocated for the first half of the fiscal year (October 1 to March 31) and 33,000 allocated for the second half of the fiscal year (April 1 to September 20). USCIS will accept 47,000 petitions for this half of the fiscal year, a target number they believe will give them enough petitions to reach the cap.