Trump wants to increase fees for H-1B visas. The total could top $200,000.

WASHINGTON The Trump administration is proposing to more than double the fees for H-1B visa applicants from abroad, potentially pushing the total cost past $200,000 per worker.

On August 24, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a new fee of $103,265 for each of the 85,000 new H-1B applicants each year. If Trump’s earlier $100,000 fee, currently blocked in court, is eventually upheld on appeal, employers would face a combined cost of $203,265 for each applicant coming from abroad.

The proposal has drawn more than 5,000 public comments in its first week. The department is collecting public comment through September 24.

How it started

Trump applied a $100,000 fee to H-1B applicants still overseas in September 2025. A federal judge in Massachusetts struck down that fee in June as unlawful, ruling that the proclamation did not explain why it was imposing a tax on employers and that it was “arbitrary and capricious.” The Justice Department has appealed.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block the judge’s ruling in July while the appeal continues, so the higher fee remains uncollected for now.

During the five months the initial fee was in effect, only 85 new applications were filed from abroad. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that represented an 87 per cent drop in applications. The agency collected $8.5 million but took in $28 million less than it would have at previous volumes.

Why the administration wants more

Justice Department lawyers argue in their appeal that the original $100,000 fee was not intended to raise money but to regulate immigration and that the president has inherent authority to exclude foreign nationals from entering the country.

The newly proposed $103,265 fee has a different stated purpose. The Department of Homeland Security said the fee is designed“to generate dedicated revenue to support the costs of administering the lawful immigration system.”

The higher fee is projected to generate $8.8 billion in revenue over a decade. That money would be distributed across several federal agencies, including $3 billion to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, $3 billion to the immigration court system, $1.2 billion to the Department of Labour, $1 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for vetting, $484 million to the State Department, and $76 million to Customs and Border Protection for traveller services.

The department’s revenue projections relied on a study by George Borjas, an economics professor at Harvard University, which estimated that between 45 and 64 per cent of H-1B workers hired between 2021 and 2024 would still be hired even with an additional $100,000 fee because their wages are lower than those of comparable American workers. Other researchers have disputed those findings.

Who uses H-1B visas

The H-1B program allocates 85,000 new visas per year under a cap, via a lottery. The visas last up to six years, and workers can remain longer if sponsored for permanent residency, a process that can take years. Immigration groups such as FWD.us estimate there are 730,000 current visa holders and an additional 550,000 dependents in the United States.

Technology companies have historically been the largest users of the program. According to USCIS data through June 30 of this year, Amazon ranked first with 9,337 approved workers, followed by Apple with 3,879, Google with 3,180, and Meta with 2,563.

Universities and health care organisations also rely heavily on the program. Stanford University employed 284 H-1B workers, the Mayo Clinic 276, and Washington University in St. Louis 219. The American Association of University Professors estimates that colleges and universities employ about 40,600 faculty members on H-1B visas.

The University of Michigan employed about 850 H-1B workers last year. A court filing from the university estimated that about one-fifth of its 450 annual applicants would have faced the $100,000 fee, costing the school roughly $9 million.

Among health care organisations, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital had 199 H-1B workers through June 30, the Cleveland Clinic had 158, and Massachusetts General Hospital had 135.

The case for the higher fee

Supporters of the fee increase argue the H-1B program creates unfair competition for American workers.

“As a technology professional living and working in Reston, Virginia, I regularly compete for the same roles as large numbers of H-1B workers,” Benjamin Wolf wrote in a public comment supporting the proposal. “In this market, the lower effective cost of sponsoring foreign labour has repeatedly put American candidates at a disadvantage.”

Alvester Johnson III, who identified himself as an IT professional in Phoenix, also supported the higher fee.

“In my experience, H-1B workers are frequently used in IT support, network operations, physical security systems, and data centre environments the same roles American workers like me compete for,” Johnson wrote. “The low existing fees make it artificially cheap for employers to prefer foreign speciality labour over investing in or retaining U.S. workers.”

The case against

Critics say the combined fees would effectively end the program.

“This is just a way to kill the H-1B program,” said Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This is just one of the many nails in the coffin of legal immigration in this country.”

Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is fighting the higher fee in federal court, said the new proposal “will make it cost-prohibitive for even more U.S. employers, especially the thousands of start-ups and small and midsize businesses who rely on H-1Bs to utilise the program.”

“The program helps companies expand, innovate, and create jobs across their operations,” Bradley said.

David Bier, a director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, argued the proposed fee would be devastating to both the program and the broader economy.

“The new fee-tax will crush the H-1B program, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of talented workers,” Bier wrote. “The H-1B fee will undermine American innovation, competitiveness, fiscal security, and ultimately prosperity.”

Health care and universities warn of shortages.

Health care advocates say higher fees would worsen existing doctor shortages. Advocates for the visas contend that a projected shortage of 86,000 doctors over the next decade could be reduced with H-1B visas, citing 23,000 foreign-trained doctors who used them from 2001 to 2024.

Edwin Zhang, who said he works in front-line patient care at a hospital, opposed the higher fee because international medical graduates are a large and essential part of the clinical workforce.

“These facilities already operate on thin financial margins,” Zhang wrote. “This will worsen existing national physician shortages, disproportionately harm rural and inner-city communities, and place avoidable strain on the broader U.S. health-care delivery system.”

Veena Dubal, general counsel for the American Association of University Professors, said higher fees would hurt research and the attraction of global talent.

“Making the bridge from U.S. universities into the broader research economy available only to the wealthiest employers will make the United States less attractive as a place to study and build a career,” Dubal said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit against the initial fee hike, calling Trump’s $100,000 fee “unnecessary and illegal” and saying it exacerbates labour shortages in key sectors.

What happens next

The program remains active at the previous fee ranges of $2,000 to $5,000 for workers already in the United States. Universities and nonprofit research centres are excluded from the annual cap and continue to hire tens of thousands of foreign workers under separate rules.

The Justice Department’s appeal of the original $100,000 fee is still pending. The newly proposed $103,265 fee is open for public comment through September 24 at the federal rulemaking portal.

This article is based entirely on reporting by Bart Jansen published in USA TODAY on September 4, 2026. All facts, figures, names, and quotes are drawn directly from that report. This article does not constitute legal or economic advice.