A skilled worker can sit in a US office and still cost their employer an extra $100,000. That is the new price tag the Trump administration has attached to H-1B visas, and it applies to any petition that counts toward the annual cap of 85,000.
The annual cap covers new H-1B visas, not all H-1B workers, and the fee would be due for each petition that counts against it. A student who graduates from a US university and switches to H-1B status would trigger the same charge as a worker already in the US.
The fee is notable for who it does not exempt. Even the 20,000 spots reserved for workers with advanced degrees would face the charge. The administration says the money is "a dedicated revenue source to recover some of the government's costs for running the legal immigration system."
For companies, the H-1B program is the main way they hire foreign talent for specialty jobs in tech, engineering, and medicine. At that price, employers will have to recalculate the cost of each new H-1B worker.
This is not the first attempt at a six-figure visa fee. An earlier $100,000 fee came from a White House proclamation, but it only applied to workers hired abroad. A court blocked it, and it disrupted employers' hiring plans across the country.
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The new proposal closes that loophole. For a worker already in the US, the fee comes as a surprise, since they did not need an international move to start the job. The proposal is also not final rulemaking, and the court challenge to the earlier proclamation shows that similar measures can face legal risk.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates the fee would bring in $8.8 billion per year. That money would fund benefit adjudication, fraud prevention, security vetting, and systems modernization. It would also cover immigration oversight at DHS and the Labor, State, and Justice Departments.
Two-thirds of the revenue would go to the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which runs the nation's immigration courts, and to other immigration agencies. The government says it considered raising fees across the board for all immigration filings but decided that would punish applicants and filings not tied to US employment. Instead, it is targeting exactly the companies that use the H-1B program most.
For investors, this is a reminder that labor costs come in many forms. A fee like this does not appear on a price tag, but it still shows up on a company's income statement.
Companies that rely heavily on H-1B workers will feel this first. They can eat the cost, raise prices, or change how they hire. Each option carries risk, and investors will be watching how companies manage the transition.
The government is also reportedly weighing a $100,000 fee for Optional Practical Training, the post-graduate work program for international students on F-1 visas. If that happens, the cost of hiring international talent could climb even higher.
The broader point is that the cost of doing business is not just about materials and wages. Government policy shapes the playing field, and this is a clear example. The price of talent is going up, and the bill may land in unexpected places.
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