The Trump administration has proposed a new $103,265 application fee for certain H-1B visa petitions, potentially significantly increasing the cost for US employers seeking to hire highly skilled foreign workers.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the proposed fee would apply to cap-subject H-1B petitions, including those eligible for the advanced-degree exemption. The additional charge would be payable when the petition is filed and would come on top of existing H-1B processing and visa-related costs.
According to DHS, the proposed fee is intended in part to discourage US companies from choosing H-1B workers over qualified American employees. Officials estimate that the measure could generate approximately $8.8 billion annually based on an expected 85,000 cap-subject petitions.
The proposed fee would not apply to certain H-1B petitions that are exempt from the annual cap. These include petitions filed by qualifying nonprofit research organizations, government research organizations and institutions of higher education.
The H-1B programme currently has an annual cap of 65,000 visas, with an additional 20,000 available for foreign nationals who have earned a master’s degree or higher from a US institution of higher education.
The latest proposal comes less than three months after a federal judge blocked an earlier attempt by the administration to impose a $100,000 H-1B fee. The court found that the administration had exceeded its authority, with the judge concluding that the proposed charge effectively functioned as a tax and raised questions about the executive branch’s authority to impose it.
The new proposal has again drawn criticism from immigration policy experts, who argue that the substantial filing cost could make the H-1B programme financially prohibitive for many employers. Critics also point out that companies would have to pay the fee without any guarantee that the underlying petition would ultimately be approved.
The H-1B programme remains particularly important to technology, healthcare, research and other specialised industries that rely on skilled professionals from around the world. A significant number of Indian professionals have historically benefited from the programme, making changes to H-1B policy closely watched by the Indian-American community and prospective applicants.
The administration has maintained that higher costs could encourage companies to prioritise American workers, while DHS says the proposed revenue would help cover expenses related to immigration processing, fraud detection, national security screening, system modernisation and other immigration-related operations.
