H-1B trends: where demand is, and what it pays.

The trends on this page are built from the U.S. Department of Labor's public Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure files for fiscal years 2021 through 2026. Every employer that sponsors an H-1B worker must first file an LCA (Form ETA-9035) stating the job title, worksite location, and the wage it will pay — so LCA data is the most complete public record of where H-1B jobs are and what they pay. Salary figures shown here are the employer-attested wages from those filings, not self-reported survey numbers.

A few things to keep in mind when reading the charts. A certified LCA is a prerequisite for an H-1B petition, not proof that a visa was ultimately approved or used — one LCA can also cover multiple workers, and filing totals include applications that were later withdrawn. Wages vary widely by metro area because the DOL benchmarks each role against a local prevailing wage, set at one of four levels (Level I entry through Level IV expert). Two identical job titles can therefore carry very different wages in different states without either being an outlier.

The state and city rankings reflect total LCA filing volume, which tracks where H-1B demand is concentrated: large technology hubs dominate, but filing growth in lower-cost metros is a useful early signal of where sponsoring employers are expanding. Year-over-year salary movement mirrors both market wage inflation and the shift toward higher prevailing-wage levels after the wage-weighted selection changes announced for recent lottery cycles.

To go deeper than the aggregates, use the H-1B database search to look up filings by employer, job title, state, or salary range. If you sponsor H-1B workers yourself, our H1B tracking software automates the compliance side — LCA postings, Public Access Files, and petition tracking — using the same underlying data definitions.