What the New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee Means for America’s Labor Market and Foreign Workers

Some US companies that depend on talented foreign workers may suffer a significant setback as a result of President Donald Trump’s most recent attempt to restructure America’s legal immigration system, which involves increasing the annual price for applicants for H-1B visas from $215 to $100,000.

Trump claimed that America needs “great workers” and that the recently imposed charge “pretty much ensures that that’s what’s going to happen” during a signing at the Oval Office on Friday. Additionally, administration officials asserted that the high cost would encourage businesses to employ Americans.

Bio Data Table for Expert on H-1B Visa Policy:

Name	Professor James Elwood
Position	Immigration Policy Expert & Legal Scholar
Education	Law and Policy, Harvard University
Specialization	U.S. Immigration Law, Labor Economics, Policy Reform
Career Highlights	Author of “The Future of Immigration in the U.S.”
Experience	20+ years of experience in U.S. immigration policy
Website	Elwood Immigration Insights

“The business must determine whether the individual is valuable enough to pay the government $100,000 annually or if they should go back home and hire an American,” Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, stated during the signing. “Hiring Americans and ensuring that the individuals entering are the best are the goals of immigration.”

An additional 20,000 of the 85,000 H-1B visas awarded each year are set aside for individuals who have earned advanced degrees from US universities.

However, there is disagreement among Trump’s supporters on how to handle the visa program.

Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump appointed to head the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, have supported businesses that rely on foreign labor to function and use the work visa. In December 2024, Steve Bannon, a prominent strategist during Trump’s first term, called H-1B visas a “scam” by Silicon Valley titans who are interested in “taking American jobs and bringing over what essentially become indentured servants at lower wages” on his “War Room” podcast.

What the new policy means for workers and corporations is as follows.

What impact will this have on visa holders?

Only new H-1B applications will be subject to the $100,000 visa fee, which goes into effect Sunday at 12:01 a.m. ET, the White House said. Unless it is extended, the rule will expire on September 21, 2026, one year later.

“This is not a yearly charge. Only the petition is subject to this one-time fee,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday on X, noting that current visa holders and renewals are exempt.

According to emails seen by CNN, Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, urged visa holders to reevaluate their plans for travel abroad and to think about returning to the US by Saturday night if needed.

However, Leavitt emphasized Saturday afternoon that the $100,000 reentry fee will not apply to any current H-1B holders who are currently outside the United States.

Which sectors will be affected?

According to a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) report, 64% of H-1B petitions granted during fiscal 2024, which ran from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024, were for computer-related positions.

Architects, engineers, and surveyors made up the next largest occupation (10%). According to USCIS, applications for jobs related to education were the third most frequently approved (6%).

Custom computer programming was the “largest detailed industry sector” for H-1B visa approvals (25%). Employers ranked professional, scientific, and technological services as the most popular industry (48%), followed by manufacturing (11%).

Which businesses would be most affected? Amazon is the biggest sponsor of H-1Bs, according to the USCIS data hub. In fiscal 2024, the massive online retailer received approval for over 9,000 H-1B visas.

Tech behemoths also depend on the H-1B program; in fiscal 2024, Google sponsored 5,364 H-1B visas that were accepted, followed by Apple (3,873), Microsoft (4,725), and Meta (4,844).

The primary recipients of H-1B visas are tech companies that have supported the Trump administration in recent months. The Seattle headquarters of Amazon are shown above.

How does this affect the competitiveness for jobs? Compared to corporations like Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, small firms and startups are more likely to object to the $100,000 price. The total capitalization of the four businesses is approximately $11.1 trillion.

Additionally, because the $100,000 price would be too expensive for a lower-paid worker to afford, foreign-born workers might be excluded from entry-level positions.

If job openings stay in America, recent college graduates, who are facing the worst market for new graduates since the Covid-19 pandemic, could benefit from them. For graduates in computer science and related fields, who are joining the workforce in the midst of layoffs and declining opportunities, this is very excellent news.

What are businesses going to do?

Trump charged US corporations with employing H-1B visas “for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay” during his 2016 campaign.

However, according to the USCIS, the typical yearly salary for authorized H-1B petitions was $120,000. The top overseas talent pool will probably continue to receive higher-paying salaries from employers. However, the American Immigration Council claims that limits may force businesses to reroute their employment efforts to nations like China, India, and Canada.

How does this impact job seekers?

Limiting H-1B holders does not ensure that Americans will be employed in the affected industries. Record-high job postings resulted from the slowdown in immigration during the pandemic and after the first Trump administration temporarily banned certain immigrant visas.

On September 6, 2024, at the New York Public Library’s annual Bronx Job Fair & Expo, job searchers speak with recruiters.

At the time, economists cautioned that increasing immigration would be necessary to address the labor shortage.

According to Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the US Chamber of Commerce, “businesses are having to turn down work because they simply can’t find the workers to do it,” he told CNN in 2021.

Could there be legal challenges to the policy?

It is probable that the new visa fee will be contested in US courts.

To be clear, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, stated on X that the president has absolutely no legal power to charge a $100,000 fee for visas. “The executive branch is only authorized by Congress to impose fees in order to recoup the application processing costs.”