H1B Visa Fee: What does it mean for America?
Aaron Stanway
US/ International News Editor
H-1B has long been a strategic advantage for America, allowing the country to soak up talent from the whole world. A new fee on this visa will not change that, the big players will still take full advantage of the global market. This fee represents another burden put in place to keep corporations happy at the expense of smaller firms
Firstly, what happened? Trump places a sudden $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions. It was announced September 19 and effectively flipped on within ~36 hours, catching hiring teams mid-cycle. Lawsuits landed immediately, but until a court blocks it, employers have to plan as if it’s real. That’s not a nudge; that’s a moat. A small team trying to hire its first ML engineer simply cannot light six figures on fire to compete with Big Tech for the same person.
Layer that on top of the earlier 2024–2026 fee changes that were already raising the floor. The H-1B lottery registration jumped from $10 to $215 starting with the FY 2026 cap season (the spring 2025 registration window). It’s still small in isolation, but when you register multiple candidates year after year, it adds up and it’s nonrefundable.
Then there’s the Asylum Program Fee, tacked onto each I-129/I-140 petition: $600 for standard employers, $300 for “small employers” (≤25 FTEs), and $0 for nonprofits. That discount matters, but for a lean, venture-tight team with a couple of key hires, even a few hundred dollars per filing isn’t trivial when you also factor in attorneys, premium processing, and the opportunity cost of delays.
What happens in the real world? Two things. First, startups delay or offshore. If you’re staring at a $100k surcharge, you either punt the role, move it abroad, or reshape the product to live without top-tier talent. That’s not theoretical; investors and operators are already saying this out loud. Second, consolidation pressure increases. Deep-pocketed incumbents can absorb the fees, then scoop talent while early-stage rivals sit on their hands. Over time, that’s less competition, slower diffusion of new ideas, and a thinner pipeline of breakout companies. However, no matter if your the top dog or just starting out, this will shrink hiring pools for overseas candidates.
Net-net: America just made high-skill hiring riskier, costlier, and slower exactly when AI, biotech, and advanced manufacturing are compounding. If we want globally scarce talent building here, price signals matter. Right now, the signal is: go somewhere else. In the long run this will only contribute to a brain drain on the US economy until it is repealed.
Contact Aaron.stanway@student.shu.edu