Hiring plans don't consult the USCIS calendar. When the req lands in the dead months, the lottery answer is “next year” — the O-1 answer is “proceed.”
From July 17, 2026 until the next registration window (approximately March 2027), a new capped H-1B is simply unavailable — not hard, unavailable. Every specialist req opened in that stretch either waits most of a year, fills domestically, or takes a route without a season.
The O-1 serves the specialist end: candidates with public evidence — publications, patents, prizes, maintainerships, deployed systems. That is exactly the pool O1DMatch carries. Paste the req and see.
