India’s largest IT services firms has reduced its reliance on H1B visas. Over the past five years, the country’s six largest IT employers—Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and LTIMindtree—have cut H-1B visa issuances by an average of 46% approximately.
Global IT Consulting firms reduce H-1B filings
TCS stood out among its peers in FY25 due to its large global workforce of 600,000 employees. According to data by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), in 2025 it remained the second-largest H-1B sponsor with 5,505 visas, after Amazon. But it shows a huge drop from 10,525 in 2021.
Global IT consulting firms such as Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, and IBM have followed a similar trend, reducing H-1B filings by an average of 44% between FY21 and FY25.
In contrast, US tech giants including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google have continued to be the top sponsors, maintaining their strong pipeline of Indian talent.
Immigration policy and geopolitics challenge Indian IT Firms
According to a report by ET Now, experts say this trend is emerging at a time when immigration policies, protectionism, and geopolitical factors are reshaping global talent mobility. With the US debating new laws like the ‘HIRE Act’, which proposes taxing outsourcing, Indian IT companies are expected to face both increased operational challenges and more complex employee mobility requirements.
Russell A Stamets, Partner at Delhi-based immigration advisory firm Circle of Counsels, said, “The traditional models of labor and productivity are being upended by major technological change equivalent to the industrial revolution.”
He added that, “So-called anti-immigration sentiment pales in significance to the wholesale restructuring of the nature of work.”
Stamets further noted that Indian IT firms, whose strategies have long relied on exporting discounted labour overseas, are vulnerable both to political shifts and to existential threats from AI large language models. “Lack of genuine innovation has left such companies extremely vulnerable,” he told ET Now.
The move away from H-1Bs also highlighted how Indian IT companies are reshaping their delivery models by boosting local hiring in the US, nearshoring work, and automating processes. This shift is driven partly by growing political pressure in Western markets to protect domestic jobs, and partly by the rise of generative AI, which threatens traditional outsourcing models.