The $103,265 H-1B: a fee 20 to 50 times higher, collected while courts call it illegal
The charge is 20 to 50 times current levels and is being pushed through despite adverse rulings. What it reprices is not the paperwork but where companies put the work.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Homeland Security published a Federal Register rule charging H-1B applicants $103,265, against a current fee of $2,000 to $5,000.
- The charge now reaches applicants already inside the United States, with possible exemptions for renewals and for hospital and university hires.
- The department projects $8.8 billion in revenue and says it will fund related agencies, including ICE.
Why it matters
- What it costs cost Employers carry it directly: moving ten people into a US site books about $1.03 million in fees before anyone is paid.
- Who has to decide decision Firms now pick between paying per head, leaving the function offshore, or routing hiring through the categories the department may exempt.
- What it limits constraint The cheap workaround is narrowing at the same time, with business and tourist visas being revoked at scale and new applicants required to prove they will go home.
- What doesn't add up contradiction The department is pricing to deter and budgeting to collect: its revenue figure only works if roughly the whole annual lottery pays full price.
Next story · Invest · Oct 7
DHS proposes charging universities $70,000 for each foreign student entering OPTConfirmed6 publishers
Run $103,265 across the 399,395 H-1B petitions approved in fiscal 2024 and the gross is about $41.2 billion [15], nearly five times what Homeland Security told Congress the fee might raise [19][21]. The gap is where the exemptions live. The department says the charge may not apply to renewals, or to foreigners hired by hospitals and universities that struggle to staff [4]. For the projection to hold, the overwhelming majority of last year's approvals have to sit outside the new fee, which means the money is meant to come almost entirely from fresh lottery winners [6].
The aggregate is not the number that changes behaviour. Korean nationals accounted for 3,983 approvals in fiscal 2024, one percent of the total [12]; at the new rate that cohort alone would cost about $411 million [17]. Indian nationals, at 283,397 approvals and 71 percent [11], would carry roughly $29.3 billion [18]. No single employer faces those totals, but every employer faces the per-head version, and per head is where staffing plans break.
The last round showed what companies do first. Immediately after the September proclamation setting the fee at $100,000, Microsoft, JPMorgan, Amazon, Google, Ernst & Young and Walmart told H-1B holders to avoid overseas travel and to come back if they were abroad [14][7]. Freezing mobility is free. Paying six figures a head is not, and the rule now extends the charge to applicants already inside the United States, who previously did not pay it [3].
The legal position has not improved for the government, which is what makes the sequencing interesting. Federal courts have blocked the fee repeatedly, and a Massachusetts federal court ruled in June that it was an illegal tax Congress never approved [5]. The rule was published a month before the proclamation's one-year term expires and is expected to be finalised around year-end after a 30-day comment period [7][8]. A proclamation lapses on a date; a regulation does not. The administration is trading a time-limited instrument for one that has to be litigated down, and the money is earmarked for agencies including ICE [21]. The Korea Economic Daily reads the timing as a signal to the base before November's midterms and as partial cover for the federal deficit [23].
Companies that treat this as a legal story wait for a ruling. Companies that treat it as a cost story move the role. One concern raised after the proclamation was that Indian and Chinese specialists who give up on the H-1B end up working for competitors of the United States, including China [22]. That is the outcome the fee schedule prices, whether or not it survives.
What to watch
- Whether the final rule keeps the carve-outs for renewals and for hospital and university hires, which decides whether the revenue forecast was ever real.
- Whether a court applies the same unapproved-tax reasoning to the rule that it applied to the proclamation.
- Whether large employers reissue travel instructions to H-1B holders before the rule is finalised.
Information, not investment advice. This story is general information about companies and markets, drawn from cited reporting. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security; check the cited sources before acting.
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- [1]
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security published a rule in the Federal Register imposing a $103,265 charge on applicants for the H-1B visa, according to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal on the 24th.
- [2]
The Trump administration decided to push ahead with raising the professional-visa fee to more than $103,000, 20 to 50 times the current level, despite courts ruling the move unlawful.
- [3]
The department expanded the fee to applicants inside the United States, beyond the overseas applicants who paid it previously.
- [4]
The new fee applies to most new applicants but may not apply to those renewing visas or to foreigners hired by hospitals and universities, which have difficulty securing staff.
- [5]
The fee has recently been blocked repeatedly by U.S. federal courts, and a federal court in Massachusetts ruled in June that it was unlawful because it amounted to an illegal tax not approved by Congress.
- [6]
The H-1B is issued for specialized STEM occupations, only 85,000 are issued each year through a lottery, and it permits an initial three-year stay that can be extended, with holders able to apply for permanent residency.
- [7]
Trump issued a proclamation last September setting the H-1B application fee at $100,000, and the department's rule came a month before the proclamation's one-year term expires.
- [8]
The rule is expected to be finalized around year-end after a 30-day comment period.
- [9]
The new charge far exceeds the current H-1B fee of $2,000 to $5,000.
- [10]
Of the professional workers whose H-1B petitions were approved in fiscal 2024 (Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024), the total was 399,395, according to a report submitted to Congress by DHS and USCIS.
- [11]
Indian nationals were the most numerous in fiscal 2024 at 283,397 approvals, or 71.0 percent, followed by China at 11.7 percent (46,680).
- [12]
South Korean nationals accounted for 3,983 fiscal 2024 H-1B approvals, or 1.0 percent.
- [13]
The administration also decided to revoke, within weeks, the visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who entered on B1 business or B2 tourist visas issued from 2016 through this year and have applied for asylum or are preparing to, according to the Associated Press; future B1 and B2 applicants will have to prove they intend to return home.
- [14]
Immediately after the September proclamation, companies including Microsoft, JPMorgan, Amazon, Google, Ernst & Young and Walmart urged employees holding H-1B visas to avoid overseas travel and to return immediately if they were outside the United States.
- [15]
Applied to all 399,395 fiscal 2024 H-1B approvals, a $103,265 charge would gross about $41.2 billion.
- [16]
Homeland Security's $8.8 billion projection divided by the $103,265 fee implies about 85,200 fee-paying petitions, essentially the entire 85,000-slot annual lottery.
- [17]
Korea's 3,983 fiscal 2024 approvals would cost about $411 million at the new rate.
- [18]
India's 283,397 fiscal 2024 approvals would cost about $29.3 billion at the new rate.
- [19]
The full-price gross across fiscal 2024 approvals is about 4.7 times Homeland Security's $8.8 billion revenue projection.
- [20]
Ten new H-1B transferees carry about $1.03 million in fees alone at $103,265 each.
- [21]
Homeland Security projected the H-1B fee could generate $8.8 billion in revenue and said it would use the money to fund related agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
- [22]
Some raised concerns that more Indian and Chinese high-skilled workers who give up on obtaining H-1B visas could take jobs in competitors of the United States, such as China.
- [23]
The move is seen as a way to underscore a tough immigration crackdown to the administration's base ahead of the November midterm elections, and as aimed at easing part of the chronic budget deficit.
Sources
4 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cpapracticeadvisor.comTrump Devises New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee After Court Defeat
1 article · August 25, 2026
- en.sedaily.comTrump Administration Pushes $103,000 Visa Fee, Straining Korean Talent Plans
2 articles · August 25, 2026
- fortune.comThe Trump administration proposes $103,000 fee for H1-B visas that DHS itself estimates would paralyze 76% of small businesses
1 article · August 25, 2026
- scmp.comUS proposes new $103,265 H-1B visa fee, expanding charge beyond new arrivals
1 article · August 25, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- US immigration policy
- Government fees and rulemaking
- Skilled-worker visas
Entities
- US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- US Department of Homeland Security
- Donald Trump
- H-1B Visa
- Center for Immigration Studies
- Christopher Landau