New York · est. 2013Saturday, September 5, 2026
Inside Immigration

Plain-language guides to US immigration, asylum and USCIS procedure.

Forms

ETA-9142B H-2B Application for Temporary Employment Certification

The temporary non-agricultural labour certification, used for seasonal work in landscaping, hospitality, seafood, construction, and similar industries. It certifies that U.S. workers are not available and that the terms will not harm domestic workers. The H-2B programme is capped at 66,000 visas a year, with supplemental allocations released by rule.

Fee
$0 to the Department of Labor. USCIS charges $1,080 for a named-worker H-2B I-129 petition or $580 for unnamed workers, plus the Asylum Program Fee and an H-2B Fraud Prevention and Detection fee.
Fee waiver
Not available
Who files
Non-agricultural employers with a temporary or seasonal need, and their agents.
Where to file
Online through the FLAG system at flag.dol.gov.
Processing time
OFLC was working July 2026 receipts in its H-2B prevailing wage queue as of the September 2026 update

Usually filed with

Part of these processes

What changed in 2025 and 2026

  • Supplemental H-2B allocations have been released each year by joint DHS-DOL rule, most recently under the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act extensions; employers using them file the ETA-9142-B-CAA attestation. The registration form ETA-9155 is not in use.

Official page. https://flag.dol.gov/programs/H-2B. Download the form there, never from a third-party site; check the edition date and fee before filing.