How Trump's $100K H-1B Visa Fee Is Reshaping Tech Hiring and Forcing Companies to Rethink Talent Strategy

The $100,000 H-1B Fee That's Shaking Up Tech Hiring

Major employers that historically hired large numbers of H-1B employees have begun disqualifying job applicants who require visa sponsorship since President Donald Trump imposed a new $100,000 fee on applications for the work visa.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote during the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference in San Jose in March. Huang wrote in a memo to staff that the company planned to "continue to sponsor H-1B applicants and cover all associated fees."

Silicon Valley's Divided Response

Silicon Valley and tech leaders have been split over the policy, with some arguing the fee would hurt innovation as many startups won't be able to hire top talent and others saying they are willing to pay it to get the best workers.

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said the fee is meant to encourage companies to turn to American workers instead of foreign workers, and ensure those entering on this visa are only the "top, top people."

Still, other tech giants, notably the Silicon Valley-based semiconductor and computing company Nvidia, have vowed to continue to apply for H-1Bs.

How Companies Are Responding

The new visa fee could dramatically reshape how American companies hire, recruit and train talent. Already, some companies appear to be pivoting to recruiting American workers although many other tech executives reiterated a commitment to facilitating immigration of skilled workers.

The policy is being challenged in court by a coalition of organizations.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, responded to a request for comment by stating that this policy "gives certainty to American businesses who actually want to bring high-skilled workers into our great country but have been trampled on by abuses of the system."

The H-1B Program Background

Established in 1990 during President George H.W. Bush's administration, the H-1B program is the primary skilled visa for foreign workers in the U.S., eligible only to those in "speciality occupations."

Previously, the fee to file a H-1B petition — legally required to be covered by the employer — was a few hundred dollars, with an additional $4,000 per employee fee for large, H-1B-dependent employers.

Trump's Sept. 20 proclamation, which the White House later clarified applies only to new H-1B applicants, would require a $100,000 payment by employers for each H-1B worker it is seeking to employ.

Impact on Major Tech Employers

Companies in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, including Google and Meta, employ H-1B visa holders in large numbers, most commonly as software engineers. They are usually well paid, with salaries upward of $150,000 per year at major tech companies.

For every 100 workers living in the Bay Area, roughly one was working on an H-1B approved in the last four years.

Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang wrote in a memo to staff that the company planned to "continue to sponsor H-1B applicants and cover all associated fees."

In an interview aired on CNBC, Huang said that "Immigration is the foundation of the American dream." He is an immigrant from Taiwan.

Nvidia was among the top employers of H-1B workers nationwide in the 2025 fiscal year, with 1,473 beneficiaries approved.

Companies Pulling Back on H-1B Sponsorship

Meanwhile, K. Krithivasan, CEO of the second-largest employer of H-1B workers this year, Tata Consultancy Services, told the Deccan Chronicle that the company would not hire new H-1B applicants because of the new visa fee. Instead, he said it would look toward expanding the workforce with U.S.-based manpower.

The company had 5,505 H-1B workers approved this fiscal year.

Some major H-1B employers' recent job postings indicate they're no longer sponsoring the visas for new applicants, though it seems to vary depending on the role.

Software engineer jobs posted after the fee was announced at Deloitte, Cognizant, and Walmart stated either that applicants must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without need for sponsorship, now or in the future, or that immigration sponsorship is not available for the role.

All three companies were among the top 10 largest employers of H-1B beneficiaries nationwide for the 2025 fiscal year.

Immigration Attorneys Sound the Alarm

Fariba Faiz, a San Francisco-based immigration attorney who specializes in H-1B petitions, said that when she first heard about the new $100,000 fee, she thought it was a joke.

"It was that outrageous," she said. "Everybody is panicking and there's a lot of misinformation out there. People are thinking of quitting jobs and moving their family because 'I don't have a future here.'"

Her clients are primarily small to mid-sized employers, like tech startups and community clinics. They will be hit much harder than major tech corporations that can afford to pay the $100,000 fee, she said.

One of Faiz's clients, a tech startup, is considering offshoring operations by opening a small office in another country for foreign workers, which would be cheaper than paying the fee.

Richard Green, an Irvine-based immigration attorney, said one of his clients, a higher education institution, was in the middle of hiring a H-1B worker as a researcher when Trump announced the new fee. The client decided to switch to applying instead for a J-1 visa.

Tech Executives Weigh In

Top executives at major H-1B employers called for protecting merit-based immigration in the wake of the new policy.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview with CNBC that he believes in "merit-based immigration," including giving green cards to graduates of American universities.

Google's Senior Vice President James Manyika said at The Washington Post's Live Global AI Summit that companies like his cared deeply about "having access to the best talent, from wherever they are," calling it a "competitive issue."

But he added that H-1B visa workers are a "small proportion of our talent" and he did not think Google would have to offshore operations because of the difficulty of hiring people in the U.S.

Parul Koul, a Google software engineer and president of the Alphabet Workers Union, told the Chronicle that Google has not communicated to workers what steps it will take regarding future H-1B petitions.

The Alphabet Workers Union organized a protest in New York in September against the visa fee and called for Google to extend protections to existing H-1B workers.