H-2B visa timeline for landscape companies: filing steps for an April 1 start

The H-2B program is the federal route a landscape company uses to staff a seasonal crew with workers from outside the United States. It is temporary, it is capped: Congress set the limit at 66,000 workers per fiscal year, split into two halves, and that cap can close months before your crew is supposed to arrive. An April 1 start date means the filing sequence begins the prior fall, not in the spring, and missing a window at any of the three agencies in the chain can push the whole season back or shut it out entirely.

Who is telling you this, and why: Fieldwynn is a field-service app for small landscape crews, we are building it, and it has not launched. The next step at the foot of this page is an early-access email ask, not a purchase. Read the page as a funnel rather than a disinterested verdict. Every procedural step and threshold below is quoted from a USCIS or DOL page and linked back to it, which is the part that holds whichever software runs your route.

The three steps, three agencies

USCIS describes the H-2B process in three steps. First, the employer applies to the U.S. Department of Labor for a temporary labor certification. Second, the employer files Form I-129 (Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker) with USCIS. Third, the workers apply for H-2B visas at a U.S. consulate and then seek admission at the border. An April 1 start means steps one and two are where the timeline pressure lives, and both run on published lead times that work backward from the date of need.

Step 1: prevailing wage and the DOL temporary labor certification

The DOL side has two sub-steps of its own, and the first one sets the floor for the whole sequence. At least 60 calendar days before it is needed, the employer must request a prevailing wage determination from the National Prevailing Wage Center. A valid prevailing wage determination is part of a complete H-2B application, and that application is filed 75 to 90 days before the date of need. For an April 1 start, the certification filing falls around January 1 to 16, so the prevailing wage request is due by about November 2, 2026 (60 calendar days before a January 1 filing), to allow processing time and have the determination in hand by the filing window.

Once the prevailing wage is determined, the employer files the H-2B application (Form ETA-9142B) with DOL 75 to 90 days before the date of need through the FLAG electronic filing system. For an April 1 start, 75 to 90 days back lands the filing window roughly in the first half of January. The DOL page notes that only one H-2B application may be filed per job opportunity, per area of intended employment, per period of employment, and gives an example of applications submitted during a three-day filing window in January.

After filing, the State Workforce Agency has six business days from receipt of the job order to report deficiencies, and the National Processing Center reviews the application within seven business days of receipt. The employer must also conduct recruitment and continue to accept referrals of U.S. applicants until 21 days before the date of need. For April 1, that referral deadline falls around March 11.

To demonstrate eligibility, the employer must show that the need is temporary. DOL recognizes four types of temporary need: a one-time occurrence, a seasonal need, a peakload need, or an intermittent need, and the certifying officer decides which one applies to the petition.

The 2027 second-half filing window. The DOL H-2B page states the 75-to-90-day rule and gives an example of applications submitted during a three-day filing window in January. As of 17 October 2026, no FY 2027 April 1 filing-window notice had been published on the DOL H-2B page. Watch the DOL H-2B program page for the announcement.

Step 2: the USCIS I-129 petition and the 66,000 cap

Once the DOL temporary labor certification is approved, the employer files Form I-129 with USCIS, submitting the original temporary labor certification with the petition. A petition may include up to 25 named beneficiaries, and each beneficiary must have met the minimum requirements on the labor certification at the time it was filed.

The cap is the constraint. The 66,000 annual H-2B slots are divided into 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year (October 1 through March 31) and 33,000 for the second half (April 1 through September 30). Unused first-half numbers roll into the second half, but unused numbers from one fiscal year do not carry into the next.

What changes when the cap is reached

When USCIS has received enough petitions to fill a half-year allocation, it stops accepting new cap-subject petitions for that period. As of September 4, 2026, USCIS had received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the H-2B cap for the first half of FY 2027 and began rejecting cap-subject petitions requesting a start date before April 1, 2027 received after that date.

That first-half closure is what makes the second-half timeline urgent for landscape companies targeting an April 1 start. Any unused first-half numbers may roll into the second half, but the second-half cap still closes once USCIS receives enough petitions. The practical upshot: the earlier the DOL certification clears, the earlier the I-129 petition reaches USCIS.

After approval, the H-2B worker may be granted a period of stay for the period authorized on the temporary labor certification, with extensions in increments of up to one year each, up to a maximum of three years. After three years, the worker must depart the United States for at least 60 days before being readmitted.

The document checklist

The lists below cover the documents the two agencies require. DOL encourages electronic filing through the FLAG system.

DOL temporary labor certification (Form ETA-9142B):

• Completed Form ETA-9142B with all required appendices
• A valid prevailing wage determination (Form ETA-9141)
• A copy of the job order filed with the State Workforce Agency for the area of intended employment
• All supporting documentation required by the form instructions
• An initial recruitment report, submitted to the NPC by the date stated in the Notice of Acceptance
• An updated recruitment report (retained by the employer for audit; records must be kept for three years)

USCIS petition (Form I-129):

• Form I-129 (Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker)
• The original temporary labor certification (for DOL FLAG cases, a printed copy of the electronic one-page final determination is accepted)
• Evidence that each named beneficiary met the minimum requirements on the labor certification when it was filed

After approval, the petitioner must notify USCIS within 2 workdays if a worker fails to report for work, is absent for 5 consecutive workdays without consent, is terminated early, or completes work more than 30 days before the authorized end date.

Filing fees. USCIS charges a filing fee for Form I-129, and additional fees may apply depending on the petition. This page does not print a fee table because the USCIS fee schedule (Form G-1055) is published on an interactive page that did not yield extractable figures on 17 October 2026. Confirm the current fees on the USCIS fee schedule page or in the Form I-129 instructions before you file.

From a filing timeline to an actual crew

The H-2B timeline gets a crew through the door. What happens after arrival is domestic operations: tracking hours, managing labor cost, and keeping utilization high enough to justify the overhead of the visa program. The labor burden rate calculator turns wages, taxes and benefits into a true per-hour cost so you can see what a seasonal crew member actually costs once the payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and any housing you provide are in the number. The hiring breakeven calculator answers how many billable hours or jobs that crew member needs to cover before the hire pays for itself. The crew timesheet template gives you a structured place to log the hours once the crew is running, and the guide to hiring your first technician covers the domestic hiring process that runs alongside or after the H-2B route.

When you are ready to run the seasonal crew with scheduling, time tracking, and route optimization, Fieldwynn is the field-service app we are building to carry that back-office load for a small landscape operation. It has not launched, so the next step below is an early-access email ask, and the calculators and the timeline facts stay free either way.