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Updated

PERM jobs in Houston, TX

Decisions
17,994
Approved
94.4%
Median certified wage
$91,915
Years
FY2016 to FY2026

Year by year

  • certified
  • denied
  • withdrawn
Fiscal years run October to September. More

Fiscal years run October to September. FY2016 to FY2023 come from DOL's closed-year files, and FY2024 on from its current ones. The newest year is partial until DOL publishes its fourth quarter.

Every year as a table
Fiscal year Certified Denied Withdrawn
FY2016 2,160 128 70
FY2017 1,343 98 53
FY2018 1,793 85 64
FY2019 1,344 117 50
FY2020 1,202 115 48
FY2021 1,278 87 67
FY2022 1,104 80 58
FY2023 1,250 70 368
FY2024 1,560 56 83
FY2025 1,700 42 69
FY2026 1,309 68 75

Top sponsors

Top occupations

Industries

Countries of citizenship

Worker's education

  • Master's 5,595
  • Bachelor's 5,568
  • None 1,851
  • High School 514
  • Doctorate 409
  • Other 356
  • Associate's 202

Visa held when filed

  • H-1B 7,246
  • L-1 1,343
  • NOT IN USA 1,057
  • F-1 789
  • TN 391
  • E-2 389
  • B-2 324
  • F-2 69
  • H-2B 60
  • EWI 56

H-1B in Houston, TX

57,438 labor condition applications name a worksite here, FY2020 to FY2026, and DOL certified 53,888 (94%). An LCA is the employer's wage attestation before an H-1B petition, so it counts positions offered. It doesn't count people hired.

Jobs, certified LCAs since FY2024

  1. Software Developers 5,362
  2. Computer Systems Engineers/Architects 1,937
  3. Data Scientists 939
  4. Computer Systems Analysts 812
  5. Accountants and Auditors 712
  6. Civil Engineers 662
  7. Computer Programmers 635
  8. Mechanical Engineers 559
  9. Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists 540
  10. Management Analysts 527

Where Houston, TX sits

Counties
Fort Bend, Harris, Montgomery and Waller counties
Census places Houston city in all four
Metro area
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX
Metropolitan statistical area
DOL wage area
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX
The area DOL sets prevailing wages for, wage year 2026-27

98.6 is BEA's price level for the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX metro area in 2024, against 100 for the country as a whole; for housing rents it's 104.5. A salary here buys about 101% of what the same salary buys at the national price level.

What these jobs pay in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX BLS May 2025, DOL wage year 2026-27
  • Software Developers
    828 PERM decisions
  • Accountants and Auditors
    677 PERM decisions
  • Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologists
    656 PERM decisions
  • Mechanical Engineers
    602 PERM decisions
  • Civil Engineers
    385 PERM decisions
  • Electrical Engineers
    363 PERM decisions
$50k$100k$150k$200k
  • middle half of pay (BLS)
  • median
  • 10th to 90th percentile
  • DOL's Levels I to IV, left to right
Market pay and DOL wage levels for the jobs filed most here
Job BLS median Level I Level II Level III Level IV
Software Developers $129,440 $87,776 $110,344 $132,891 $155,459
Accountants and Auditors $85,090 $62,587 $79,040 $95,472 $111,925
Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologists — $42,203 $52,998 $63,773 $74,568
Mechanical Engineers $125,350 $86,029 $109,408 $132,808 $156,187
Civil Engineers $100,950 $71,386 $91,291 $111,176 $131,082
Electrical Engineers $131,070 $81,182 $108,035 $134,909 $161,762

Any job in any area, and every wage year since 2021-22, in the wage-level tool.

The jobs filed most in Houston, TX: what employers in the metro report paying everyone in each, and DOL's four prevailing wage levels there. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics; DOL OFLC wage tables

The worksite city on each application, from DOL's decided cases since FY2016. Spellings of one city are pooled, and a city counts as one place per state.

Case data through Jun 30, 2026 · LCA disclosures through Jun 30, 2026 · Census places and metros through Jan 1, 2026 · BLS market pay through May 31, 2025 · DOL wage tables through Jul 1, 2026. How these figures are counted. Spotted an error? Tell us; every fix is dated in the corrections log.

The sources in full

Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly

LCA disclosures: DOL quarterly LCA disclosure files (www.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly

Census places and metros: Census Bureau Gazetteer and metro delineation files (census.gov) · data through Jan 1, 2026 · yearly

BLS market pay: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (bls.gov) · data through May 31, 2025 · yearly, each spring

DOL wage tables: DOL OFLC wage data downloads (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jul 1, 2026 · yearly, each july

What each source includes

Case data: Decided PERM cases only. A case still waiting isn't in here, so counts and durations describe finished cases.

LCA disclosures: Certified and denied H-1B labor condition applications only, with the wage offered.

Census places and metros: Where each worksite city sits: its county, metro area and DOL wage area, matched to Census's place and county files. A city Census lists in no single place is left unmatched. This site doesn't guess it.

BLS market pay: Pay employers report for everyone in each job, from BLS's yearly survey (May of the year named). It's shown nationally, by state and by metro. It covers citizens and immigrants alike, and it isn't drawn from PERM offers.

DOL wage tables: The four prevailing wage levels DOL publishes for every job in every area, each wage year from 2021-22, as DOL's own tables print them. They're the floors an offer is held to. They don't show what anyone was paid.

Cite this page

Waiting on a PERM case?

  • When it'll likely be decided
  • An email when DOL moves it

It's on your ETA-9089 receipt. A case number looks like G-100-26125-868956.

Don't have the number?