Skilled tech professionals, especially from India, are bearing the brunt of President Donald Trump’s September 2025 $100,000 one-time fee on certain new H-1B visa petitions. Mid-sized firms and consultancies have rescinded job offers, delayed start dates, or halted international hiring altogether rather than pay the steep surcharge.

But the biggest victim isn’t the tech world, it’s the policy itself, and by extension, the “America First” agenda it championed. Fresh USCIS data filed in an ongoing court case proves the fee has backfired financially.

From September 21, 2025, to February 15, 2026, only 85 employers paid the $100,000 fee, generating $8.5 million. That’s a minor uptick from Bloomberg’s earlier count of about 70 payers, but the real story is the collapse elsewhere.

Standard H-1B petition fees for applications involving consular notification abroad dropped. Compared to the same period a year earlier (September 21, 2024–February 15, 2025), USCIS collected roughly $28 million less in those regular fees. Net impact: $8.5 million gained, $28 million lost, a shortfall of about $19.5–20 million.

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Companies looking for alternatives

According to a recent Bloomberg analysis, employers are now prioritising foreign workers already in the US, who are not subject to the $100,000 fee. “Most companies are still going to proceed with sponsoring first-time H-1B applicants, but only if those individuals are already in the US,” one Immigration Attonrey told Bloomberg.

The executive order creating the fee is set to expire in October, and there is no clarity on whether it will be renewed. States are also acting independently. Florida recently froze H-1B hiring at public universities this year while it studies past usage. Texas banned H-1B hiring at public universities and state agencies until at least May 31, 2027.

Speaking to the Financial Express, Virginia-based immigration attorney Rajiv S. Khanna criticised the $100,000 H-1B fee, calling it a poorly thought-out policy that is creating serious problems for employers and skilled workers. “Typical of a shortsighted, ill considered, and incoherent policy made ad hoc, promulgated for political grandstanding, this hundred thousand dollar fine creates a large pain point for most US employers and professional workers,” Khanna said. He added that the rule is already disrupting hiring and travel for workers, noting that “workers are not able to travel, foreign talent cannot be hired, and the policy still remains ill defined.”

The numbers first gained attention after Connor O’Brien, a fellow at the Institute for Progress, posted screenshots from the filing on X on March 12, 2026. Soon after, immigration policy expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, reacted to the figures online. He described the outcome as “an absolutely incredible statistic.”

An earlier study suggested employers would pay even more

The policy was partly backed by economic research suggesting that companies might still hire foreign workers even if visa costs went up sharply. In February 2026, George J. Borjas, a Harvard economist, published a study through the National Bureau of Economic Research titled “The H-1B Wage Gap, Visa Fees, and Employer Demand.”

Using a labour-demand model, Borjas argued that companies hiring H-1B workers might actually tolerate a much higher fee. His research suggested employers’ willingness to pay could support a one-time visa fee ranging from $118,000 to $264,000 without significantly reducing hiring.

The paper also estimated that such fees could bring in between $6.2 billion and $22.4 billion every year. But the early real-world data suggest that even the $100,000 fee may have been high enough to make many employers reconsider filing petitions in the first place.

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Why the H-1B program is always under debate

In September 2025, Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation that made a major change to the US H-1B visa program. The order, titled “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers,” introduced a new and unusually high fee for some visa applications.

Under the rule, certain new H-1B visa petitions would have to include a one-time payment of $100,000. The policy applied to petitions filed on or after September 21, 2025. It covered cases where the worker was outside the United States or where the employer requested consular notification, port-of-entry notification, or pre-flight inspection.

Employers were told they had to pay the fee through pay.gov and attach proof of payment to the petition. If the proof was missing, the application would be denied outright. The administration said the move had two clear goals: to stop fraud and misuse in the H-1B program and to bring in extra government revenue.

The H-1B visa program has long been a major way for US companies, especially in the technology sector, to hire skilled foreign workers, many of them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) roles.

Critics argue it can push down wages or replace American workers, making the program one of the most politically sensitive parts of US immigration policy. The new $100,000 fee has already become part of that debate. Several business groups have filed legal challenges, arguing that the policy goes beyond the president’s authority.

For now, USCIS has said the fee applies only to new petitions going forward. The agency has also issued detailed guidance explaining how the rule works and outlining a few limited exceptions.

What remains unclear is whether the drop in petitions is temporary or the start of a longer trend. No public data yet shows how hiring patterns may change over a full year.