Visa Classes in LCA Data: H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3
A common shorthand describes LCA disclosure files as 'H-1B data'. The shorthand is understandable — H-1B cases are the overwhelming majority of filings — but it is not accurate, and this site avoids it in its titles and labels. The Labor Condition Application is the required filing for three visa classes: H-1B workers in specialty occupations, H-1B1 workers from Chile and Singapore under those countries' free-trade agreements with the United States, and E-3 workers from Australia. All three use the same form, the same prevailing-wage rules and the same disclosure file, and each row records its visa class in the VISA_CLASS field.
The classes differ in ways that matter to applicants but barely at all to wage statistics. H-1B is subject to an annual cap with a well-known lottery for cap-subject employers, while cap-exempt employers such as universities and affiliated nonprofits may file year-round. H-1B1 has its own separate, much smaller cap that has historically not been reached, and E-3 is specific to Australian nationals and is renewable. For salary research, however, the classes are priced identically: the same occupation in the same area carries the same prevailing wage whichever class the filing is under, so combining them — as this site does — does not distort wage distributions in the way that, say, mixing visa classes with different wage rules would.
Why insist on the accurate label, then? First, because counts matter in public debate, and describing every LCA case as an H-1B case overstates H-1B volume by the size of the other two classes. Second, because employer mixes differ: universities and research institutions appear prominently in LCA data partly through cap-exempt H-1B filings, and readers reasoning about the cap lottery from filing counts alone will go astray. Third, because honesty about scope is what separates a data publication from a headline. Our pages therefore say 'certified LCA filings' wherever a figure appears, name the three classes in the methodology, and reserve class-specific language for statements the VISA_CLASS field can actually support.
It is equally important to say what is not in this data. Permanent labour certification (PERM) filings, which support employment-based green cards, are published in separate disclosure files and are excluded here entirely, as are the H-2A agricultural and H-2B temporary non-agricultural programmes, which use different forms and different wage structures. A worker's career may pass through several of these systems — an LCA-supported role first, a PERM filing later — but each system generates its own records, and combining them without saying so produces counts that describe no real programme.
For most readers the practical takeaway is modest: when this site reports that an employer filed a given number of certified cases at a given median wage, read 'cases under the LCA system, predominantly H-1B'. When precision matters — in research, journalism or policy work — the underlying files let you filter by VISA_CLASS directly, and our methodology gives the file names, fiscal years and retrieval date needed to reproduce any figure on this site from the Department's own publication.
How These Figures Were Computed
Every figure on this page was computed by our script directly from the U.S. Department of Labor OFLC LCA disclosure files for FY2024 Q4 and FY2025 Q1–Q4, retrieved in October 2026. We kept only cases whose CASE_STATUS is exactly “Certified” — denied, withdrawn and certified-withdrawn cases are excluded. Headline medians use filings whose wage unit is a year, because annual salaries compare cleanly; hourly, weekly and monthly filings are counted in case totals but are not converted into the headline median, and our methodology page explains that choice in full. Wages below $15,080 a year (the annualized federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour) or above $1,000,000 a year are excluded from medians as likely data-entry placeholders, and the number excluded is reported in the manifest that accompanies this site. Medians are shown alongside means because a handful of very large offers can drag a mean far above what a typical filing actually offered.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the data behind this guide come from?
All figures referenced in this guide come from the U.S. Department of Labor OFLC LCA disclosure files for FY2024 Q4 and FY2025 Q1–Q4, retrieved in October 2026, filtered to 662,198 cases with a status of exactly Certified. The methodology page documents the full cleaning process.