US proposes $103,265 fee for H-1B visas

The Trump administration has proposed imposing an additional $103,265 fee on employers filing cap-subject H-1B petitions, a sweeping increase that could sharply raise the cost of recruiting skilled foreign workers, including professionals from India.

The Department of Homeland Security said the fee would apply to every cap-subject petition, including filings for workers eligible under the advanced degree exemption. Employers would pay it when filing the petition and in addition to all other applicable fees or payments.

The proposal is not yet final. It is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, beginning a 30-day period for public comments.

DHS estimated that the fee would raise about $8.8 billion annually, based on a projected 85,000 cap-subject petitions each year.

“The proposed H-1B fee is intended to recover the costs incurred across the federal government to adjudicate, vet, and support lawful immigration programs that otherwise must be funded by taxpayers,” US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Zach Kahler said.

The money would be used to recover part of the federal government’s costs of operating the legal immigration system. DHS listed immigration benefit adjudications, fraud detection, national security screening, modernisation of government systems and record collection among those expenses.

The revenue would also support immigration courts, consular visa processing, labour standards enforcement and coordination among federal agencies, according to the proposed regulation.

The department said the fee would fund immigration-related activities undertaken by USCIS, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Justice Department’s immigration courts, the State Department and the Department of Labor.

It would not apply to cap-exempt petitions filed by certain non-profit research organisations, government research bodies and institutions of higher education.

The annual H-1B allocation is limited to 65,000 visas, with a further 20,000 places available to foreign nationals who have earned a master’s degree or higher qualification from a US institution.

DHS said the fee would be imposed uniformly, irrespective of an employer’s size or non-profit status. Its analysis found that 14,541 of the 28,649 organisations filing cap-subject petitions in fiscal 2025 were small entities.

The department estimated that the regulation would have a significant financial impact on 11,051 small entities, representing 76 per cent of the small organisations covered by its analysis.

FWD.us President Todd Schulte called the proposal a “massive tax on American businesses” and said it formed part of a broader effort to weaken legal immigration.

“Policies like the H-1B innovation tax and the rumored tax on Optional Practical Training will only hinder our ability to compete globally for top talent and economic leadership. Jobs and businesses will move overseas, and all workers will be worse off for it,” Schulte said.

He also questioned the government’s legal authority to charge an amount extending beyond the direct cost of processing an individual petition.

“This proposed tax clearly violates the law by charging far more than is allowed, which should be the cost to adjudicate an H-1B petition,” Schulte said.

DHS, however, maintained that federal immigration law permits the government to establish fees at a level sufficient to recover the full cost of immigration adjudication and naturalisation services. It said cap-subject H-1B employers were generally more able to pay than individual immigration applicants.

The H-1B programme allows US employers to hire foreign professionals for specialised jobs requiring advanced knowledge. Technology, engineering, finance, medicine and research are among the sectors that regularly use the programme.