# Where EarthOnline Visa's numbers come from

Every number on https://visa.earthonlines.com comes from one public source: the Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure files of the US Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC), published on its [Performance Data page](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/performance) under "Disclosure Data", "LCA Programs (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)". We read the files as DOL publishes them, clean them (below), and keep 1,023,639 filings of 89,776 employers. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Labor.

## The files

A federal fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. A year that is over is published as four files, one per quarter, each holding the cases decided in that quarter. The year under way is one file, from October 1 to the end of the latest quarter, replaced each quarter. Where a case appears twice, the later file (its later decision) is kept.

## FY2025: October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025

| File | Covers | Decided, per OFLC | Read here |
|---|---|---|---|
| [LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q1.xlsx](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q1.xlsx) | October 1 to December 31, 2024 | 105,681 | 1,042,871 rows, 2026-10-03 (DOL's copy of 2025-02-11) |
| [LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q2.xlsx](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q2.xlsx) | January 1 to March 31, 2025 | 132,133 | 132,133 rows, 2026-10-03 (DOL's copy of 2025-12-15) |
| [LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q3.xlsx](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q3.xlsx) | April 1 to June 30, 2025 | 238,425 | 683,534 rows, 2026-10-03 (DOL's copy of 2025-12-15) |
| [LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q4.xlsx](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2025_Q4.xlsx) | July 1 to September 30, 2025 | 118,580 | 563,689 rows, 2026-10-03 (DOL's copy of 2025-12-18) |

Field descriptions: [record layout](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/LCA_Record_Layout_FY2025_Q4.pdf). OFLC's own counts: [selected statistics](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/LCA_Selected_Statistics_FY2025_Q4.pdf).

## FY2026: October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026

| File | Covers | Decided, per OFLC | Read here |
|---|---|---|---|
| [LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2026_Q3.xlsx](https://www.dol.gov/media/LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2026_Q3.xlsx) | October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 | 437,496 | 1,032,735 rows, 2026-10-03 (DOL's copy of 2026-08-07) |

Field descriptions: [record layout](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/FY26Q3/LCA_Record_Layout_FY2026_Q3.pdf). OFLC's own counts: [selected statistics](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/oflc/pdfs/FY26Q3/LCA_Selected_Statistics_FY2026_Q3.pdf). This year is not over: the next release replaces this file.

## License

U.S. Government work, in the public domain (17 U.S.C. §105). The law, [17 U.S.C. §105](https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105):

> Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

The Department of Labor, on [its own website's material](https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/copyright):

> Materials created by the federal government are generally part of the public domain and may be used, reproduced and distributed without permission. Therefore, content on this website which is in the public domain may be used without the prior permission of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). However, such materials may not be used in a manner that implies any affiliation or endorsement by the DOL of your company, website or publication. You may properly credit public domain materials obtained from a DOL website to the U.S. Department of Labor and/or https://www.dol.gov.

So the data may be copied and shared, also commercially. We credit it to the U.S. Department of Labor on every page and in every tool answer, and we never suggest DOL endorses this site.

## What we keep, and what we leave out

- Kept: the case number and decision, the visa class, the dates, the employer (name, trade name, city, state, ZIP code, country, FEIN, NAICS industry code), the job (title, SOC code and title, full time, positions, employment type), the first worksite (city, county, state), the wage and the prevailing wage.
- Left out, though the files have them: names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of people (the employer's contact, the attorney, the preparer), the attorney's and law firm's details, and street addresses of worksites (some are homes).
- Not read yet: the separate Worksites files (the second and later worksites of an LCA) and Appendix A files on the same page.

## How we clean it

- Employer names: upper case, accents dropped, "&" read as AND, apostrophes dropped, every other mark a space, a run of single letters joined (L.L.C. becomes LLC, J.P. becomes JP), a leading THE and anything after DBA dropped, legal endings dropped from the end (INC, INCORPORATED, LLC, LLP, LP, PLLC, PC, PA, PLC, LTD, LIMITED, CORP, CORPORATION, CO, COMPANY, NA, GMBH, AG, SA and a few more). Two filings whose names come out the same are one employer. The name shown is the one filed most often; every other spelling is kept and can be searched.
- FEIN: the files carry the employer's FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number). Names filed under the same FEIN from the same ZIP code are one employer (a company that renamed itself, a misspelt name). The ZIP code is part of the rule because a state government's FEIN is shared by its universities and agencies, which are not one employer. A FEIN that would join more than 25 names is not used to join any.
- Wages: the lower end of the wage offered (WAGE_RATE_OF_PAY_FROM), turned into a year by its unit of pay: Year x1, Month x12, Bi-Weekly x26, Week x52, Hour x2,080 (40 hours a week, 52 weeks). A yearly figure under $15,000 or over $2,000,000 is a slip in the application (an hourly rate marked "Year"): the filing shows what was written, but it is left out of every wage figure. Wage figures (25th percentile, median, 75th percentile, interpolated between ranks as Excel's PERCENTILE.INC) use certified full-time filings only.
- Decisions: CASE_STATUS as written by DOL. Only "Certified" counts as sponsored. "Certified - Withdrawn" (certified, then withdrawn by the employer), "Withdrawn" and "Denied" are counted apart.
- Places: the first worksite's state as its two-letter code, its city with periods and commas dropped and in title case ("ST. LOUIS" becomes "St Louis"). Different spellings of one city are not joined otherwise.
- Job titles: kept as written. Grouped (for "top titles") without regard to case, spaces, a trailing mark, or a requisition number at the end ("Software Developers - KBGFJG76491-21" counts as "Software Developers"). Each filing keeps its SOC code (the six digits of the O*NET code, "15-1252.00" becomes "15-1252") and SOC title.
- Dates: the files store dates as Excel day numbers; we keep them as YYYY-MM-DD.

## What the numbers are not

- An LCA is not a visa. It is the employer's attestation to DOL, the step before a petition to USCIS. A certified LCA may never be used, and USCIS may refuse the petition. Counts of LCAs are not counts of visas or of people hired.
- One LCA may cover several positions, and an employer may file several LCAs for one person (a change of job, an extension, an amendment).
- Wages are what employers wrote on the LCA, not what they paid.
- An employer with one FEIN but two names at two addresses shows as two employers; two different employers with the same name show as one.
- The year under way stops at the latest quarter DOL has published (FY2026: October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026).
- Data entry mistakes in the files stay as they are, except the wage slips above.