The Trump administration on Friday issued a proclamation adding a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, a special type of employment visa for highly skilled workers. Currently, employers pay up to $7,330 in fees for H-1Bs.
Big Tech companies are major users of these types of visas. Six companies– Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia–used 35,000 of the 85,000 available H-1B visas in the 2025 fiscal year. Amazon led the group, using over 14,000.
Microsoft and Nvidia declined to comment. Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, and Meta did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The proclamation alleges that U.S. tech companies use the program not for filling top jobs, but rather entry-level roles “to artificially suppress wages, resulting in a disadvantageous labor market for American citizens.”
“President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system,” said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson.
Though not citing them by name, the proclamation seemed to call out Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, and Intel for using the program, while at the same time conducting layoffs this year.
Salesforce did not immediately respond to Barron’s request for comment and Intel declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Commerce owns 275 million shares of Intel as part of an unusual recent deal.
Mahsa Aliaskari, an immigration attorney with Seyfarth Shaw who specializes in H-1B visa issues for clients in the life science, health care, and finance industries, believes that the policy will cut off a key funnel for the best talent.
“When companies go out into recruitment mode and they’re recruiting the best colleges, they’re not looking at people’s [immigration] status,” she told Barron’s. “They’re really looking at who’s available, what are their credentials, what are their interests, what are their skill sets.”
There is also the question of whether the executive branch can make this change under the laws cited by the proclamation. The president has broad power to exclude classes of visa applicants, but this prerogative has never been based on a fee before. The Immigration and Nationality Act provides for a $1,500 fee, plus other fees based on recovering costs associated with visa issuance.
As with so many abrupt policy shifts in the second Trump administration, the announcement caught many off-guard. The new fee is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday. Typically, new rules from the executive branch require a 60-day public comment period.
The new fee will not apply to 2025 visa holders, only to new H-1B visa petitions.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem will be able to waive the new fee for an entire company, entirely at her discretion. This would give the White House leverage over visa applicants in the same way Trump is using exemptions from tariffs.
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