Donald Trump kills H1B visa program with $100,000 annual fee impacting the Indians most, companies ask H1B visa holders outside US to return within 24 hours

In a sweeping move, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation late Friday imposing a staggering additional $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visa applications. The new fee is effective immediately for new filings and will be effective from 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025 for renewals. White House said that the visa fee has been hiked as a “crackdown on systemic abuse” of the H1B vista system. It stated that “the key facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labor has been the abuse of the H-1B visa.” The presidential order further claims that American companies are laying off American workers to hire aliens on H1B visa on lower salaries. The Executive Order by President Trump claims that “Information technology (IT) firms in particular have prominently manipulated the H-1B system, significantly harming American workers in computer-related fields.” The H1B is already an expensive visa, costing around $1,700 to $4,500, depending on whether the visa is expedited. Now an amount of $100,000, around ₹88 lakh, will be added to this fee. The H1B fee is paid by employers, who consider this as a business expense. The Executive Order states a new or renewal application for H1B visa must be accompanied by the additional $100,000 fee, without which the application will be rejected. The additional fee is effective for 12 months, unless extended later. The EO states, “Employers shall, prior to filing an H-1B petition on behalf of an alien outside the United States, obtain and retain documentation showing that the payment described in section 1 of this proclamation has been made.” The hiked fee makes it almost impossible for companies to hire foreign skilled workers under this visa, it is higher than the average salary of an H1B visa holder. Only few top companies may be willing to pay this astronomical amount, that too for their most valuable foreign employees. Mid-level companies will stop hiring foreigners altogether, and big companies may hire only a handful of foreigners. Notably, while the presidential proclamation said that $100,000 must be paid at the time of new or renewal visa application, implying it to be an annual fee, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that it is an annual fee. Therefore, if a company retains a foreign employee for 6 year, the maximum validity of H1B visa, the company will have to pay a staggering $600,000 fee. “Stop this nonsense of letting people come to America on visas for free. Only valuable people are welcome,” says US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hiking H1B visa fee pic.twitter.com/SwGh3D9sih— Shashank Mattoo (@MattooShashank) September 19, 2025 India set to hit most hard by this move, as around 70% of H1B visa holders are Indians, with approximately 300,000 of its citizens currently working in the U.S. on H-1B visas—predominantly in IT, engineering, and healthcare fields. Indian firms like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies, which sponsor a significant portion of these visas, could face billions in added costs, potentially jeopardizing thousands of offshore jobs. Similarly, global tech giants like Google, Amazon, Meta, IBM, Microsoft, Apple etc are also set to hit hard, as they have relied on the visa program to hire skilled employees from India and other countries. “Trump’s $100K H-1B visa fee hits Indian IT firms hard: 13,000+ jobs at risk, soaring costs for TCS, Infosys, Wipro. US talent crunch forces major shift in India’s global tech strategy,” said investor Pariman Ade in a widely shared