In a dramatic turn for the global technology workforce, new data reveals that Indian IT companies have seen H-1B visa approvals for new hires in the United States plunge to their lowest level in a decade. According to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), using the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) H-1B Employer Data Hub, leading Indian IT firms secured just 4,573 H-1B visas for new employment in fiscal year 2025—a staggering 70% drop from 2015 and a 37% fall compared to the previous year.
The numbers highlight a seismic shift in how tech talent moves across borders, with U.S. tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google now dominating the landscape. These American firms received far more H-1B approvals for new hires than their Indian counterparts, signaling a new era in global tech recruitment. The trend is unmistakable: while Indian IT companies are stepping back from the visa route, U.S. companies are doubling down on hiring foreign-born talent, especially to fuel their rapidly expanding artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.
Amazon, for example, topped the list in fiscal year 2025 with 4,644 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment, followed by Meta Platforms with 1,555, Microsoft with 1,394, and Google with 1,050. It marks the first time the top four slots for initial H-1B approvals have gone exclusively to U.S. companies, according to NFAP data cited by Newsweek. Indian IT services behemoth Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was the only Indian company to break into the top five, but even then, it managed just 846 approvals for initial employment—a sharp fall from 1,452 such approvals the previous year.
For continuing employment—essentially, extensions for existing H-1B workers—Amazon again led the field with 14,532 approvals, trailed by TCS with 5,293, Microsoft with 4,863, Meta with 4,740, Apple with 4,610, and Google with 4,509. This data not only underscores the dominance of U.S. tech companies in the H-1B ecosystem but also highlights the narrowing pipeline for Indian IT professionals seeking to work in the United States.
Stuart Anderson, executive director of NFAP, explained the shift in stark terms. "The numbers show Indian-based companies now deliver IT services to U.S. businesses using relatively few H-1B visas, while the largest U.S. technology companies are hiring many individuals, including recent foreign-born graduate students from U.S. universities, to help build AI in the United States after investing several hundred billion dollars to develop artificial intelligence," Anderson told Newsweek.
Indeed, the race to build in-house AI capacity has prompted U.S. tech giants to pour billions into research and development, recruiting aggressively from both domestic and international talent pools. This strategic investment is reshaping not just the composition of the American tech workforce but also the broader flow of skilled migration into the country.
The decline in H-1B approvals for Indian IT firms is especially striking when viewed in historical context. In 2015, these companies were among the largest recipients of new H-1B visas, helping to drive the growth of the U.S. tech sector with a steady influx of highly skilled workers from India. Now, with just over 4,500 new H-1B approvals in fiscal year 2025, their share has dwindled to a fraction of what it once was.
Part of the explanation lies in changing recruitment strategies. Indian IT companies, facing tighter U.S. immigration policies and shifting client demands, have begun to deliver more services from overseas or by hiring locally within the United States, rather than relying on H-1B visas to bring workers from India. This pivot has not only reduced their dependence on the visa program but also forced them to adapt to a more competitive and uncertain global labor market.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s approach to high-skilled immigration remains a crucial backdrop. The NFAP analysis emphasizes that the current data reflects the period before the Trump administration’s strictest proposed measures on foreign hiring—including a controversial $100,000 fee for each new H-1B recipient. While some earlier policies did increase scrutiny and raise rejection rates, the overall denial rate for continuing-employment H-1B petitions remained low at 1.9% in fiscal year 2025, nearly unchanged from 1.8% in 2024 and below the 2.4% rate recorded in 2023.
For TCS, the sole Indian IT firm in the top five for continuing-employment approvals, the picture is mixed. The company received 5,293 approvals for continued employment but saw its extension rejection rate rise to 7% in fiscal year 2025, up from 4% the previous year and well above its peers. This uptick in rejections signals ongoing challenges for Indian firms navigating the evolving U.S. immigration landscape.
Other Indian IT companies have slipped further down the rankings. LTIMindtree and HCL America, for example, just managed to stay within the top 25, ranking 20th and 21st respectively for H-1B approvals. These numbers underscore the broader retreat of Indian IT firms from the visa program, even as their U.S. clients and competitors ramp up hiring of foreign-born workers—especially recent graduates from American universities with advanced degrees in STEM fields.
H-1B petitions for initial employment count toward the annual 65,000 visa cap, with an additional 20,000 exemptions for those holding U.S. advanced degrees. This structure has long favored companies able to attract highly educated talent, but the latest data shows that U.S. tech giants are leveraging their scale and resources to outpace international rivals in the competition for skilled workers.
The implications of these shifts are far-reaching. For the U.S. tech sector, the influx of foreign-born talent is fueling innovation in critical areas like artificial intelligence and cloud computing. For Indian IT firms, the decline in H-1B approvals is prompting a rethink of their global delivery models and talent strategies. And for policymakers, the data raises fresh questions about how best to balance the needs of American employers, foreign workers, and the broader economy in an age of rapid technological change.
As the world’s largest technology companies continue to invest billions in AI and related fields, the dynamics of skilled migration are likely to keep evolving. Whether Indian IT firms can regain their footing in the U.S. market—or whether America’s homegrown giants will continue to dominate the H-1B landscape—remains an open question, but one thing is clear: the race for tech talent has never been more intense, or more global.
