Trump administration proposes additional $103,265 fee for H-1B petitions

The Trump administration has proposed an additional fee of $103,265 for every cap-subject H-1B petition, a sharp increase that could substantially raise the cost of hiring skilled foreign professionals, including workers from India.

Under the proposal, employers would pay the fee when submitting an H-1B petition. It would apply to petitions filed under the regular annual quota as well as those eligible for the advanced-degree exemption.

The payment would be levied in addition to all existing filing fees and other applicable charges, according to the proposed Department of Homeland Security regulation.

The measure has not yet been finalised. Its publication in the Federal Register on Tuesday will begin a 30-day public consultation period, during which individuals, businesses and other stakeholders may submit comments.

DHS estimates that the fee could generate approximately $8.8 billion annually, based on a projected 85,000 cap-subject petitions each year.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Zach Kahler said the proposed charge was intended to recover federal expenses associated with adjudicating applications, conducting security checks and administering legal immigration programmes that would otherwise be financed by taxpayers.

According to DHS, the revenue would support immigration benefit adjudication, fraud detection, national security screening, record collection and the modernisation of government systems.

It would also fund immigration courts, consular visa processing, labour standards enforcement and coordination among federal agencies.

The agencies expected to benefit include USCIS, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Justice Department’s immigration courts, the State Department and the Department of Labor.

The proposed charge would apply only to cap-subject petitions. Cap-exempt petitions filed by qualifying institutions of higher education, non-profit research organisations and government research bodies would not be covered.

The H-1B programme has an annual statutory limit of 65,000 visas, with an additional 20,000 places reserved for foreign nationals holding a master’s degree or higher qualification from a US institution.

The fee would be applied uniformly, regardless of the size or non-profit status of the employer.

DHS found that 14,541 of the 28,649 organisations that filed cap-subject petitions in the 2025 financial year qualified as small entities. It estimated that the proposal would have a significant financial impact on 11,051 of them, representing 76 per cent of the small organisations assessed.

FWD.us president Todd Schulte described the measure as a “massive tax on American businesses” and warned that it could undermine the country’s ability to compete for highly skilled global talent.

He argued that higher costs associated with H-1B hiring and other employment-based immigration routes could encourage companies and jobs to move overseas. Schulte also questioned whether the government had the legal authority to charge employers considerably more than the direct cost of processing a petition.

DHS maintained that federal immigration law allows it to set fees at levels sufficient to recover the full cost of immigration adjudication and naturalisation services. It also argued that employers filing cap-subject H-1B petitions generally have a greater ability to pay than individual immigration applicants.

The H-1B programme allows American employers to recruit foreign professionals for specialised roles requiring advanced knowledge. It is widely used in technology, engineering, finance, medicine and research. The official proposal acknowledges that the fee would impose substantial costs on employers but argues that it could also reduce their incentive to hire H-1B workers overqualified American professionals.

With IANS inputs