2024 H-1B Employer Trends: Who Received Initial Approvals, and What the Data Shows

Key findings:

• USCIS approved 127,166 initial H-1B petitions across 34,664 employers in 2024, at a 97.2% initial-approval rate, both up from 2023.

• Meta, Apple, Intel, Accenture, and LTIMindtree lead the 2024 single-entity ranking. Two 2023 leaders, Microsoft and IBM, are essentially absent from the 2024 file under those names, a finding significant enough to flag rather than explain away.

• Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services remains the largest industry by a wide margin. Manufacturing and Finance and Insurance both grew enough to pass Health Care and Information in the 2024 ranking.

• The typical 2024 sponsor again filed once. The median and mode are both 1 approval, versus a mean of 3.7, reinforcing the same documentation and entity-identification implications as 2023.

Since 2019, ProfVal has provided support to immigration attorneys and their clients. Visit ProfVal's H-1B Expert Opinion Letter Page

The H-1B visa

The H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa classification that allows a U.S. employer to sponsor a foreign worker in a specialty occupation, defined under INA 214(i)(1), 8 U.S.C. 1184(i)(1), as an occupation requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent in that specific specialty.[1]

The classification also covers a small number of other categories, including Department of Defense cooperative research and development project workers and fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A fuller discussion of the H-1B, including its history, cap structure, and general qualification requirements, is available on ProfVal's H-1B Visa Overview page.[2]

Each fiscal year, USCIS reports two kinds of approvals for every H-1B petitioning employer: initial approvals, which cover a worker's first authorization to work for that specific petitioner, and continuing approvals, which extend or amend an existing period of employment. This post uses initial approvals only, since that figure best reflects new H-1B hiring activity in a given year.

2024 H-1B Employer Approvals in context

USCIS's 2024 Employer Data Hub file reports 127,166 initial H-1B approvals, issued to 34,664 distinct employer records, alongside 3,611 initial denials and 194,600 continuing approvals.[3]

Both initial approvals and the employer count rose from 2023's 108,180 approvals across 27,989 employers, and the initial approval rate improved as well. Consistent with the H-1B Employer Data Hub's own convention, each employer record in this analysis reflects a distinct petitioner name, tax ID, and location combination, so a company that files under more than one legal entity appears more than once.

Meta, Apple, Intel, Accenture, and LTIMindtree lead the 2024 single-entity ranking. Amazon's filings remain split across multiple subsidiary entities, as in 2023, with Amazon Development Center US Inc (480) and Amazon Web Services Inc (441) the two largest individually.

Two of 2023's five single-entity leaders are worth flagging directly. Microsoft Corporation and IBM Corporation, which led or placed in the 2023 top three at 977 and 944 initial approvals respectively, show combined totals under 15 each in the 2024 file under those exact names. This is too large a swing to state as a confirmed trend without reservation. It could reflect a genuine pullback in new H-1B filings at both companies, a shift to filing under a different corporate subsidiary name not captured by a name-based search of the data, or another reporting nuance in how USCIS compiled the 2024 file. We are flagging it here rather than asserting a cause, and it is worth an independent check against USCIS's own published totals before this is treated as settled.

Example of how "Employer of Record" doesn't tell the whole story - Amazon Case Study

As in 2023, Amazon's initial approvals were filed by multiple separate legal entities rather than one. Combined, Amazon-affiliated entities received 1,583 initial approvals in 2024, spread across the following filers:

The same practical point applies as in 2023: an offer from "Amazon" could mean any one of these entities is the actual petitioner on the I-129, and each has its own filing history with USCIS.

Industry findings across 2024 employers

Six industries, grouped by two-digit NAICS code, accounted for 89% of 2024 initial approvals. Manufacturing and Finance and Insurance both grew enough to overtake Health Care and Information from their 2023 rankings:

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (NAICS 54): legal, accounting, engineering, IT and management consulting, and computer systems design firms. The largest category by both volume and breadth, 15,865 distinct employers.

Leading employers: Accenture LLP (806), LTIMindtree Limited (747), Ernst Young US LLP (694), Wipro Limited (576), Tech Mahindra Americas Inc (482).

Educational Services (NAICS 61): universities, school districts, and affiliated research and teaching institutions, most filing as cap-exempt petitioners.[1] Driven by breadth, 2,441 distinct employers, rather than by a few dominant filers.

Leading employers: Mayo Clinic (231), The Leland Stanford Jr University (229), University of Michigan (229), University of Pennsylvania (173), Yale University (158).

Manufacturing (NAICS 31-33): production of physical goods, including electronics, semiconductors, automotive, and pharmaceuticals. The category grew the most of any of the six from 2023, driven by large hardware and auto manufacturers.

Leading employers: Apple Inc (858), Intel Corporation (839), Tesla Inc (740), Nvidia Corporation (370), Qualcomm Technologies Inc (352).

Health Care and Social Assistance (NAICS 62): hospitals, medical schools, and other clinical and social assistance providers. Approvals are spread across a large number of teaching hospitals and research medical centers.

Leading employers: Upstate Cerebral Palsy Inc dba Upstate Caring Partners (156), Cleveland Clinic (128), General Hosp Corp d/b/a Mass General Hospital (125), St Jude Children's Research Hospital (121), Children's Hospital Corporation (111).

Finance and Insurance (NAICS 52): banks, investment managers, insurance carriers, and payment companies. Overtook Information in the 2024 ranking, led by a cluster of major banks rather than one dominant filer.

Leading employers: Goldman Sachs and Co LLC (377), Citibank N A (289), Fidelity Investments (199), Barclays Services Corp (176), Goldman Sachs Services LLC (169).

Information (NAICS 51): software publishing, data processing and hosting, telecommunications, and media and streaming services.

Leading employers: Meta Platforms Inc (906), Amazon Development Center US Inc (480), Amazon Web Services Inc (441), Oracle America Inc (359), ByteDance Inc (340).

The median, mean, and mode of 2024 h-1B Employers tell a different story than the top of the list

Across the 34,664 employer records that received at least one 2024 initial approval:

The mean of 3.7 approvals per employer is again pulled well above what a typical filer looked like, because a small number of large employers received hundreds of approvals each. The median and mode, both 1, describe the typical sponsor far better: half of all employers with an approval received exactly one, and 21,636 employers, 62.4% of all employers with an approval, received exactly one.

The pattern is consistent with 2023. The 105 employer entries with 101 or more initial approvals represent 0.3% of all sponsoring employers but accounted for 19.2% of all initial approvals, meaning the mean is a poor description of a typical filer and the median and mode are the more accurate ones.[3]

What this means for petitioners and counsel

• For the large majority of H-1B sponsors, who filed once in 2024, USCIS has no prior filing history with that employer to draw on. Documentation establishing the position as a specialty occupation, including an Expert Opinion Letter where warranted, carries more weight when there is no track record of prior approvals to point to.

• For petitioners at a large, multi-entity employer, confirming which specific legal entity and tax ID is the actual petitioner matters, as the Amazon breakdown above illustrates. A worker's understanding of "who sponsors me" and USCIS's understanding of the petitioning entity are not always the same company informally, and prior approval history is tied to the entity, not the brand.

• Year-over-year employer rankings can shift sharply, as the Microsoft and IBM figures show. Counsel should verify a specific employer's recent filing history directly rather than assuming continuity from a prior year's top-employer list.

  
  

Top 50 H-1B employers by initial approvals, 2024

Ranked by initial approvals for a single employer, tax ID, and location entry, as reported by USCIS. Employers that file under more than one entity, such as Amazon, Cognizant, or Deloitte, may appear more than once or may rank lower individually than their combined total would suggest.

How ProfVal can help

This kind of employer-level detail is exactly what an H-1B petition needs to get right, and it is the kind of documentation ProfVal helps attorneys and petitioners assemble:

• H-1B Expert Opinion Letters: an in-depth, signed opinion from an expert in the beneficiary's field addressing specialty occupation and beneficiary qualification questions. Learn more on ProfVal's H-1B Expert Opinion Letter page.

• Academic Transcript Evaluations: a credential evaluation establishing the U.S. equivalency of a beneficiary's foreign degree and coursework. Learn more on ProfVal's Academic Transcript Evaluation page.

ProfVal has provided these services since 2019, drawing on a network of 200+ affiliated experts across academic disciplines, and is a sponsor of AILA (the American Immigration Lawyers Association). ProfVal is also committed to equality of opportunity in the immigration process.[5] Publishing free, data-driven analyses like this one, without a paywall, is part of how ProfVal supports that commitment.

Sources

[1] Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 214(i)(1), 8 U.S.C. 1184(i)(1); Section 214(g)(5)(A), 8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(5)(A).

[2] ProfVal, H-1B Visa Overview, profval.com.

[3] USCIS, H-1B Employer Data Hub, fiscal year 2024 (h1b_datahubexport-2024.csv), downloaded from uscis.gov.

[4] Prior-year 2023 figures as reported in ProfVal's earlier 2023 H-1B employer analysis, drawn from the same USCIS Employer Data Hub series.

[5] ProfVal, Our Story, profval.com.

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