On September 19, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that has sent shockwaves through the American tech and finance sectors: the cost of sponsoring a new H-1B visa application for high-skilled foreign workers will leap from $215 to a staggering $100,000. The order, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on September 21, 2025, applies solely to new H-1B applications and not to renewals or current visa holders, according to the White House and multiple news outlets including Business Insider, CNN, and NPR.
The H-1B visa program, long a staple for Silicon Valley giants and multinational banks to fill specialized roles, now faces a dramatic overhaul. With just two days’ notice, companies scrambled to advise their foreign-born employees: stay in the United States or, if abroad, return immediately before the new rule slams shut the door. Amazon’s internal guidance, posted late Friday, warned, "If you have H-1B status and are in the US: Stay in the country for now, even if you have travel planned for the immediate future." The memo added, "If you have H-1B or H-4 status and are outside the US: Try to return before tomorrow's deadline if possible."
Similar advisories echoed across Microsoft, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, and Google. Microsoft’s internal message, shared with employees and reviewed by Business Insider, acknowledged the abrupt disruption: "We know this may interrupt your travel plans. But the critical thing is to stay in the US in order to avoid being denied reentry." The memo sought to address the anxiety of affected workers, stating, "I know these developments are creating uncertainty for many of you. While we don't have all of the answers right now, we ask that you prioritize the recommendations above."
Amazon, the largest H-1B sponsor in fiscal year 2024, employed nearly 15,000 workers under the program, according to federal filings. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple also rely heavily on H-1B hires, collectively sponsoring tens of thousands of visas. JPMorgan Chase, for its part, sponsored nearly 2,000 H-1B visas last year, primarily for software roles. The scale of the disruption is difficult to overstate: more than half a million U.S. residents are in the country on H-1B visas, according to a 2020 government estimate cited by NPR.
So why the sudden, steep fee? The Trump administration argues it’s about ensuring companies hire only the "top, top people" from abroad and, where possible, train and employ American workers instead. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it bluntly at the Oval Office signing: "Either the person is very valuable to the company and America, or they're going to depart and the company is going to hire an American." Lutnick continued, "That’s the point of immigration: Hire Americans and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people." President Trump himself, speaking to the New York Post last December, said, "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program." But, he argued during the signing, the new fee "pretty much ensures that that’s what’s going to happen."
According to the White House, the $100,000 fee is a one-time charge for new H-1B applications and will expire on September 21, 2026, unless extended. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified on social media that "this is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition," and that it "does not apply to renewals or current visa holders." She also emphasized that current H-1B holders outside the U.S. would not be charged the new fee to reenter the country.
For the tech industry, the timing and scale of the fee are a gut punch. The H-1B program is a lifeline for filling specialized roles that, employers say, are difficult to staff domestically. In fiscal year 2024, 64% of approved H-1B petitions were for computer-related jobs, with architecture, engineering, and surveying next (10%), followed by education (6%), according to USCIS data reported by CNN. The largest detailed industry sector for approved H-1B visas was custom computer programming (25%), and nearly half of all H-1B employers were in professional, scientific, and technical services.
But the policy’s impact will be uneven. While tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Alphabet (Google’s parent) boast a combined capitalization of over $11 trillion and can theoretically absorb the cost, smaller businesses and startups may balk. As CNN notes, the $100,000 fee is likely to lock out entry-level foreign-born workers and recent college graduates, especially those seeking lower-wage positions. That could mean more job openings for American graduates, particularly in computer science and tech, but it could also prompt companies to shift hiring abroad, to countries like India, China, and Canada, according to the American Immigration Council.
The new fee has drawn criticism from multiple quarters. The American Immigration Council wrote on Bluesky, "This policy shrinks our talent pipeline, undermines job creation, and hands America's competitive edge to global rivals." Some immigration-focused groups have warned that the restriction could backfire, making it harder for U.S. companies to compete globally. On the other hand, critics of the H-1B program, including politicians from both parties and labor economists, have long argued that it depresses wages and exploits foreign workers. A 2020 study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that most H-1B employers pay migrant workers less than market rate salaries. Ron Hira, a Howard University professor who studies high-skilled immigration, told NPR that "in a lot of ways, this effort, directionally at least, is in the right direction. It's long overdue."
Legal challenges are almost certain. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, argued on social media that "the president has literally zero legal authority to impose a $100,000 fee on visas. The only authority Congress has ever given the executive branch here is to charge fees to recover the cost of processing the application." Whether the courts will agree remains to be seen, but the uncertainty adds to the chaos for both employers and employees.
Historically, the H-1B program has been a political football. During his 2016 campaign, Trump accused U.S. companies of using H-1B visas "for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay." Yet, according to USCIS, the median annual compensation for approved H-1B petitions was $120,000. The debate over whether the program helps or harms American workers is far from settled.
What’s clear is that, for now, the rules of the game have changed overnight. Big Tech, which has spent much of this year trying to curry favor with President Trump—attending his inauguration, promising investments, and even hosting dinners at the White House—now finds itself scrambling to adapt to a policy that could upend its business model. As Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and others rush to advise their employees and weigh the cost of compliance, one thing is certain: the landscape for skilled immigration in America just got a lot more complicated.
With the clock ticking toward the September 21 deadline, thousands of workers and their families are left anxiously waiting, wondering what comes next in the ever-shifting terrain of U.S. immigration policy.
