1. Understanding the Federal Immigration Pipeline
When you browse any data dashboard on H1BIndex, whether you are looking at a specific Employer, a City, a Law Firm, or a hyper-niche Job Role, you might notice something that looks like a contradiction: Our salary and filing volume data might say "Current FY 2026," but our Approval/Denial metrics say "FY 2025."
This is not an error. This is exactly how the United States federal government processes immigration data. We do not artificially alter the dates to make them match; we show you the exact, verifiable truth of the federal pipeline.
To understand why this happens, you have to understand that hiring an international worker involves two entirely different government agencies acting months apart:
- Step 1: The Money (Department of Labor). An employer offers you a job and files a Labor Condition Application (LCA). The DOL checks the salary and approves it. This happens quickly.
- Step 2: The Visa (USCIS). Months later, after the H-1B lottery is run, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reviews your degree, the company's background, and makes the final decision to Approve or Deny the actual visa.
2. Leading vs. Trailing Indicators
Because these two agencies act at different times, they release their data at different times. H1BIndex uses these two streams to give you a complete, 360-degree view of an employer.
The Leading Indicator (DOL Data):
The DOL releases data quarterly. This gives us a real-time radar of what a company is doing right now. If a company filed 500 LCAs yesterday with a median salary of $140,000, we capture that in our next quarterly update. This tells you exactly what they are offering in today's market.
The Trailing Indicator (USCIS Data):
Because it takes months for a visa to actually be processed, USCIS only releases their massive Approval/Denial database once a year, after the fiscal year has entirely concluded. It is impossible to have real-time approval data for visas that are still sitting on a federal officer's desk. Therefore, USCIS data is a "trailing" indicator.
The Golden Rule of Federal Data: The government's Fiscal Year runs from October 1st to September 30th. USCIS will always be one year behind the current DOL filing data.
3. Why We Combine Them For You
If we waited for the dates to perfectly match up, we would be forcing you to look at salary data that is over a year old. In a fast-moving tech economy, a year-old salary benchmark is completely useless for negotiation.
By displaying the live quarterly DOL data alongside the trailing USCIS data, we answer the two most critical questions you face during a job hunt:
- "What salary are they offering today?" (Answered by our fresh, current-year DOL metrics).
- "If I accept this offer, does this company have a reliable history of actually getting visas approved?" (Answered by our trailing, full-year USCIS metrics).
We embrace the federal data lag to give you the ultimate leverage. You get the most current financial data available, backed by the most reliable historical track record.