How to Search the H-1B Visa Salary Database for Any Employer

Every H-1B wage a company filed with the Department of Labor is public — here's exactly how to search it by employer, role, and location.

You have one company in mind, one job title, and one city — and you want to know what that employer actually pays H-1B workers in that role, not a generic salary-survey average. That number is on public record. Before any employer files an H-1B petition, it must first file a Labor Condition Application (LCA) with the Department of Labor, and LCA filings are public — including the attested wage level and wage rate for that specific job title, employer, and worksite. You can search them directly. Here is exactly how.

What the "H-1B salary database" actually is

No government agency runs a search tool literally branded "H-1B salary database." What people mean by that phrase is the LCA disclosure data — the wage attestations every H-1B (and H-1B1, E-3) sponsor has to file with the Department of Labor before USCIS will even accept the petition. The Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification releases this data as raw disclosure files each quarter, and a handful of free tools — built on those same government files — let you search by employer name, job title, or city instead of downloading and filtering spreadsheets yourself.

It's worth keeping this separate from a different, similarly-named dataset: the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub, which shows how many petitions an employer filed and how many were approved or denied — a count, not a wage. If you want that side of the picture, our guide to building a target company list from LCA and USCIS employer data covers both datasets and how they work together.

How to search it, step by step

1. Get the employer's exact legal name. A company you know by its consumer brand may file LCAs under a different registered entity — a staffing subsidiary, a holding company, or a legal name that doesn't match the logo on their careers page. Check a recent LCA or the company's LinkedIn "About" page if the brand name returns nothing.
2. Search the LCA disclosure data. You can query the Department of Labor's own performance data files directly, or use a free third-party search interface — tools like FLC Data Center and h1bdata.info re-index the same public DOL files into a searchable-by-employer format, which is faster than filtering a quarterly CSV by hand.
3. Narrow by job title or SOC code. Employers file separate LCAs per role, so search the job title you care about, or the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code if the title varies ("Software Engineer II" vs "Software Development Engineer" at the same company, for instance).
4. Filter by worksite city and state. The same employer can file wildly different wage levels for the same title across offices — a New York worksite and a smaller-metro worksite are not the same filing.
5. Sort by filing date or decision date, most recent first. This is the step people skip, and it's the one that matters most (more below).
6. Record the wage level, wage rate, and prevailing wage for the filing you land on. All three are on the record — you want the specific number, not just a range.

Reading the results — what wage level actually means

Every LCA lists a wage level from I to IV, set under the Department of Labor's prevailing wage methodology (usually sourced from OEWS survey data). The level reflects the experience and independent judgment the role requires, not a arbitrary internal label — and since the wage-weighted H-1B lottery took effect on February 27, 2026, it now also affects lottery odds for cap-subject registrations.

Two things to take from that table. First, a Level I filing isn't a red flag by itself — plenty of legitimate new-grad roles are attested at Level I because the role genuinely is entry-level. Second, the level is set before the LCA is filed, which means it's a conversation worth having with a prospective employer's HR or immigration team early, not something you discover after the fact. A higher level improves your proportional odds in the lottery pool; it does not guarantee selection, since the draw still happens from within that weighted pool.

Why the filing date matters more than the number itself

LCA wage data is a snapshot — it reflects what an employer attested for a specific job title, at a specific worksite, on a specific filing date. Companies adjust pay bands, open new offices, and reclassify roles between wage levels over time, so a filing from several years ago can understate or overstate what the same employer is offering today. Always check a company's most recent filings for the role and location you care about rather than resting on an older LCA that happens to rank first in search results. If a search tool lets you sort by decision date, use it, and treat anything older than a year or two as directional history rather than current pay.

Cross-checking what you find

A single LCA tells you what one employer attested for one role in one location — useful, but narrow. To get a fuller picture:

• Pull multiple recent filings for the same title at the same company to see the range, not just one data point.
• Compare that number against broader compensation research for your role and experience level; our salary research guide for international candidates walks through combining LCA data with other sources.
• Adjust for where you'd actually be working — the same nominal salary lands very differently in a high-cost metro than a lower-cost one. Our cost-of-living vs H-1B salary comparison by metro is built for exactly this comparison.
• If you want the fuller filing record — case status, worksite address, SOC code, and history across years — rather than just the wage line, see our walkthrough on searching LCA filings directly.
• If wage level and lottery odds are the reason you're researching this in the first place, our explainer on how the wage-weighted lottery actually works goes deeper on the mechanism than the summary above.

Common mistakes

• Treating one old filing as today's pay. An LCA from three years ago tells you what the wage was then, at that worksite — not what's being offered now. Always sort for recency.
• Searching the wrong legal entity. Brand names and filing names often differ, especially for companies with staffing subsidiaries or multiple registered entities.
• Ignoring the worksite. The same employer, same title, different city can mean a meaningfully different wage level and rate. Don't average across locations you're not actually considering.
• Assuming a Level I filing means a lowball or non-serious offer. Genuinely entry-level roles are correctly filed at Level I. The level should match the actual duties, not signal how much the employer values the role.
• Assuming a high wage level guarantees lottery selection. It buys more entries in the pool under the rule effective since February 27, 2026 — it does not remove the randomness of the draw itself.
• Only checking one job title. If your target role could reasonably be filed under two different titles or SOC codes, search both — employers aren't consistent about which one they use.

Frequently asked questions

What is the H-1B visa salary database? There is no single government database with that exact name. What people mean is the Labor Condition Application (LCA) disclosure data that employers file with the Department of Labor before every H-1B petition, which is public and shows the attested wage level and wage rate for a specific job title, employer, and worksite. The Department of Labor publishes the raw records quarterly, and several free tools let you search them without downloading spreadsheets.

Is H-1B salary data actually public? Yes. LCA filings are public record by law, and the Department of Labor releases the underlying disclosure files on a quarterly basis. Free search tools built on that same data let you look up any employer's filings by name, job title, or worksite location without needing to parse the raw files yourself.

How do I search H-1B salaries for one specific company? Start with the employer's exact legal name, since a company doing business under a brand name may file under a different registered entity, then narrow by job title or SOC code and worksite city if the employer has filed many LCAs. Sort the results by filing or decision date so you're looking at the most recent record rather than one from several years ago, since pay and worksite can both change between filings.

What do wage levels I through IV mean on an LCA? Wage levels are the Department of Labor's way of matching an offered wage to the experience a job requires, running from Level I (entry-level, basic understanding of duties) up to Level IV (fully competent, requiring advanced skills and independent judgment). Since the wage-weighted H-1B lottery took effect on February 27, 2026, the level also determines how many entries a registration gets in the selection pool, so it's worth understanding before an LCA is filed, not after.

Does a higher wage level guarantee selection in the H-1B lottery? No. Under the wage-weighted selection rule effective February 27, 2026, a Level IV offer gets four entries in the lottery pool compared to one for Level I, which improves the odds proportionally, but selection is still drawn from that pool rather than guaranteed to any wage level. Talk to your employer's immigration counsel or your DSO about how a role's wage level gets set if you want to understand your own situation.

Want a second set of eyes on what a target employer's filings actually mean for your odds? F1Jobs can help you put the wage data in context alongside the rest of your job search strategy.