This page is pretty jank-tastic but it has some charts on it in addition to serving up H1B lottery numbers, the # of days in which the lottery cap was reached, etc. Has some interesting data points around the GFC plus or minus a few years: https://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-cap-reach-dates-history-graph...
2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 saw no H1B lottery.
2007 took 55 days to reach the cap; 2010 took 264 days; 2011 took 300 days; and 2012 took 235 days; and 2013 took 71 days to reach the H1B visa cap.
I haven't averaged out the 'days to reach the cap' during the other years shown on that chart but the decade or so of "5 days" mixed in with a few 10 and 20 days tells me that the cap is usually reached in about a week or so.
I'm sure that there are sites with prettier bar charts. What surprised me the most was that in the early-to-mid-2010s you were looking at ~85k H1B applications, with that number increasing into the high 100ks, low 200ks by the late 2010s. 2022 saw ~300k applicants with 2023 seeing half a million.
2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 saw no H1B lottery. 2007 took 55 days to reach the cap; 2010 took 264 days; 2011 took 300 days; and 2012 took 235 days; and 2013 took 71 days to reach the H1B visa cap.
I haven't averaged out the 'days to reach the cap' during the other years shown on that chart but the decade or so of "5 days" mixed in with a few 10 and 20 days tells me that the cap is usually reached in about a week or so.
I'm sure that there are sites with prettier bar charts. What surprised me the most was that in the early-to-mid-2010s you were looking at ~85k H1B applications, with that number increasing into the high 100ks, low 200ks by the late 2010s. 2022 saw ~300k applicants with 2023 seeing half a million.