President Donald Trump announced plans in September to impose a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications, a move that could pose a challenge to companies, particularly in the technology sector, that rely heavily on highly skilled foreign workers.
“Now this is a big change because the typical fee is currently a couple thousand dollars,” said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research. “So this could potentially change the program pretty significantly.”
“The whole idea is, no more will these Big Tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “They have to pay the government $100,000, then they have to pay the employee. So it’s just not economic.”
The H-1B visa program, created by Congress under the Immigration Act of 1990, allows U.S. employers to hire foreign professionals on a temporary basis for positions that require highly specialized expertise. H-1B visa approvals, which are valid for three years and can be extended for up to six years, are capped at 65,000 per year, with an additional carve-out of 20,000 for individuals with advanced degrees.
“The program was designed to bring in people, especially since technology was starting to ramp up in particular, bring in people that the U.S. did not have in terms of actual labor supply,” said Roth.
