PlainVisa

Our H-1B visa data methodology

PlainVisa is a public reference for H-1B visa sponsorship data. Every employer profile, occupation page, and ranking on this site is derived from federal H-1B visa Labor Condition Application disclosure files, no editorial scoring, no proprietary H-1B visa estimation, no third-party data layer.

Data Source

All data comes from the DOL ETA Foreign Labor Certification Performance Data, quarterly disclosure files published by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. These files contain every Labor Condition Application (LCA) submitted by employers seeking to sponsor H-1B workers.

Our database spans FY2023 through FY2026 and is updated quarterly when new disclosure files are released.

What is a Labor Condition Application?

Before an employer can petition USCIS for an H-1B nonimmigrant worker visa, they must first file a Labor Condition Application with the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. The LCA process certifies that the employer will pay at least the prevailing wage for the occupation in the geographic area and that hiring the foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers. Each LCA record in the disclosure data includes the following fields:

  • Employer name and location
  • Job title (SOC occupation code)
  • Offered wage and wage unit
  • Prevailing wage level (Level I–IV)
  • Work site location (city, state)
  • Begin and end dates
  • Number of workers covered
  • Certification status (Certified, Denied, Withdrawn)

Processing Pipeline

We download quarterly DOL ETA disclosure files (typically CSV format) and process them as follows:

  • Name normalization: Employer names are normalized (trimming whitespace, standardizing common suffixes like Inc, LLC, Corp) to enable consistent aggregation across quarters and fiscal years.
  • Employer profiles: All LCA records for a normalized employer are aggregated into a single profile showing petition counts, salary ranges, top occupations, and geographic distribution.
  • Occupation views: LCA records are grouped by SOC occupation code to show which roles attract the most H-1B filings and the associated salary ranges.
  • Metro and state views: Work site locations are used to build geographic breakdowns of H-1B filing activity.

Limitations

  • An LCA filing does not guarantee that the H-1B petition was approved or that a worker was hired. LCA certification is a prerequisite, not the final approval step.
  • A certification or denial rate reflects DOL's wage/attestation review of paperwork, not an assessment of an employer's conduct, compliance history, or trustworthiness. A below-average rate should not be read as evidence of wrongdoing.
  • Employer name normalization is imperfect, the same organization may appear under slightly different names across quarters, particularly for large multinationals with many subsidiaries.
  • Salary data is the offered wage from the LCA, not the worker's final compensation.
  • Work site city/state reflects where the work is performed, which may differ from the employer's headquarters location.

Data Collection Method

The Department of Labor publishes LCA disclosure files quarterly, containing every Labor Condition Application processed during the reporting period. These files are available as CSV downloads from the DOL ETA Office of Foreign Labor Certification website. Each record represents a single LCA submission with all fields as reported by the employer. DOL does not independently verify employer-reported wage offers or job descriptions, the data reflects what employers attest to when filing. We download each quarterly release and process it to build cumulative multi-year views.

Update Schedule

DOL publishes new LCA disclosure files quarterly, typically within 1-2 months after the quarter ends. We update our database when each new quarterly file is released. Between releases, newly filed LCAs will not appear in our database. Historical quarterly data remains stable across updates, DOL does not retroactively modify prior quarter disclosure files.

Additional Data Sources

Beyond the DOL LCA disclosure data described above, two sections of the site draw on separate federal data feeds:

Not Affiliated

PlainVisa is not affiliated with the Department of Labor, USCIS, or any government agency. We are an independent data portal presenting publicly available DOL disclosure data in a more accessible format.