What Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee Means For Indians And Tech Giants

India Today

US President Donald Trump has raised the H-1B visa fee from $215 to $100,000 per application, in what he calls an effort to protect American workers from being undercut by lower-paid foreign professionals.

Transcript

00:00$100,000 a year for H-1B visas, you hire Americans.

00:04Here's what the $100,000 H-1B visa fee means for Indians.

00:08Stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country

00:11on these visas that were given away for free.

00:14From 2020 to 2023, Indians received nearly 71% of all H-1B visas.

00:19China was a distant second at 11.7%.

00:22In the first half of 2025, Amazon had received approval

00:25for more than 10,000 H-1B visas.

00:27Indian company TCS secured the second position,

00:30while Microsoft ranked third with 5,189 visas.

00:38The H-1B visa application is an employer-sponsored process.

00:43After the Trump proclamation on September 19,

00:45the visa fee for employers jumped from $215 to $100,000.

00:50So $100,000 a year, so either the person is very valuable

00:54to the company and America, or they're going to depart

00:58and the company's going to hire an American.

01:01The program is designed to prevent situations where foreign workers

01:04often hired at comparatively lower pay

01:06end up competing directly with U.S. tech workers,

01:08who typically earn higher salaries.

01:10For fiscal year 2026, the registration is complete already.

01:14The registration window opened on March 7, 2025,

01:16and closed on March 24, 2025.

01:18According to an internal email reviewed by Reuters,

01:20Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas

01:24to return to the U.S. immediately before the September 21 deadline.

01:31While immigration critics have applauded Trump's move,

01:34Dow Grant, a former senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,

01:38called it a fan service for immigration restrictionists.

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