1How do you check if a company filed an LCA?
Every LCA a US employer files is public. The fastest way to check is to look the company up in a tool built on the Department of Labor disclosure data, which returns filing counts, job titles, wages, and worksites in seconds. You can also download and search the raw DOL files yourself if you want the source records. Either way, the data is open, so you never have to ask the company directly to find out whether it has sponsored before.
A Labor Condition Application is the document an employer files with the DOL as a required step before petitioning USCIS for an H-1B worker. Because filing one is mandatory before sponsorship, the presence of LCAs is the clearest public signal that a company has gone through the H-1B process for a given role and wage.
2How do you search the DOL disclosure data manually?
The Department of Labor publishes LCA disclosure files every quarter through its Office of Foreign Labor Certification. The raw data comes as large spreadsheets covering every certified, denied, and withdrawn application for the period. Searching it by hand works, but it takes patience.
- Download the quarterly LCA disclosure file from the DOL Office of Foreign Labor Certification performance-data page
- Open it in a spreadsheet tool (the files have hundreds of thousands of rows, so filtering matters)
- Filter the employer name column for the company you're researching, watching for name variants and subsidiaries
- Sort by decision date to see the most recent filings first
- Repeat across quarters if you want more than one period of history
3How do you read an LCA record?
Job Title + SOC Code
Tells you which occupations the company actually sponsors. If your target role never appears, that's a signal worth noting before you apply.
Offered Wage vs Prevailing Wage
Shows whether the company pays at, above, or right at the legal floor for the role and location. A pattern of paying well above prevailing is a healthier sign.
Worksite Location
The actual address where the sponsored job sits, which can reveal whether a "remote" or HQ-listed role is really tied to a specific office.
Case Status
Certified is the normal pre-petition outcome. A history of denied or withdrawn filings is worth a closer look before you bank on sponsorship.
Once you find a company's filings, a handful of columns tell you almost everything useful. The job title and SOC code show what kind of roles the company sponsors. The wage fields show the offered wage and the prevailing wage for that role and location, which tells you whether the company pays at or above market. The worksite location shows where the sponsored job actually sits, which can differ from the headquarters.
The case status matters too. A status of Certified means the DOL approved the LCA, which is the normal path before an H-1B petition. Withdrawn or Denied tells a different story. A company with hundreds of certified LCAs for software engineers at competitive wages is a much stronger sponsorship signal than one with a single withdrawn filing from years ago.
4What is the faster way to look up any employer?
Downloading multi-hundred-thousand-row spreadsheets for every company you're curious about doesn't scale when you're applying to dozens of roles. ShouldApply pre-processes the DOL disclosure data so you can type a company name and get its filing history immediately, including filing counts, common sponsored titles, and approval rates. Run any employer through the H-1B Sponsorship Checker, or browse companies ranked by filing volume on the H-1B sponsor pages.
This is the same public data the manual method uses. The difference is that the parsing, name-variant matching, and quarter-over-quarter aggregation are already done, so you spend your time deciding where to apply instead of cleaning spreadsheets.
Skip the spreadsheets. Type a company name and see its H-1B filing history from DOL disclosure data in seconds.
Check an Employer5Does an LCA mean the job sponsors H-1B?
Not exactly, and this is the most common mistake. An LCA proves a company has sponsored before. It does not prove a specific open role includes sponsorship. A company can file hundreds of LCAs and still post a particular job that explicitly requires existing work authorization, because budget, headcount, and hiring-manager preference vary role to role.
Treat LCA history as a strong starting filter, not a guarantee. A company with a deep filing record for your job title is a far better bet than one with none, but you still confirm sponsorship for the specific role during the recruiter conversation. If you want a script for that conversation, the guide on how to ask a recruiter about H-1B sponsorship covers the timing and wording.
Written by
Jesse Johnson
Founder, ShouldApply
Founder of ShouldApply. I write about job search strategy, hiring, and how to spend your time on opportunities that actually fit. Full bio →
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Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The Department of Labor publishes Labor Condition Application disclosure files every quarter through its Office of Foreign Labor Certification. The files list every certified, denied, and withdrawn application, including employer name, job title, wage, worksite, and case status. Anyone can download and search them, which is why you never have to ask a company directly to learn whether it has sponsored before.
No. An LCA proves a company has sponsored H-1B workers before, but it does not guarantee that any specific open role includes sponsorship. Budget, headcount, and hiring-manager preference vary by role, so a company with a deep filing history can still post a job that requires existing work authorization. Use LCA history as a strong filter, then confirm sponsorship for the specific role with the recruiter.
The DOL releases LCA disclosure data on a quarterly cycle, so the most recent filings typically lag by a few months. That lag is fine for assessing whether a company sponsors at all, since sponsorship patterns are stable over time, but it means the very latest filings may not appear yet. Tools built on this data refresh when each new DOL quarterly file is published.
Each record includes the employer name, the job title and SOC occupation code, the offered wage and the prevailing wage for the role and location, the worksite address, the period of employment, and the case status (certified, denied, or withdrawn). Together those fields show what roles a company sponsors, where, and at what pay relative to the legal floor.
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Stop guessing whether a company sponsors.
The DOL disclosure data already has the answer. Type a company name and see its H-1B filing history, common titles, and approval rate in seconds.
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