The Trump administration’s new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications is sowing confusion among some immigrant workers and their employers, including whether it’s safe for current holders of the visa to travel outside the U.S.
The new fee, which President Trump announced in a proclamation on Friday, represents a major change to a 35-year-old program that has enabled millions of immigrants to work legally in the U.S. The visa has become a mainstay in the technology industry, including among bellwethers such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, and is also widely used in the financial sector.
Over the weekend, the White House sought to clarify the new policy, stating that the fee doesn’t apply to current H-1B holders and that it is a one-time cost required only when initially applying for the visa.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the addition of a $100,000 charge for H-1B visas on top of the existing fees reflects President Trump’s promise “to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages.”
She added, “The text of the proclamation is very clear, and it is unfortunate that uninformed reporters and corporate lawyers attempt to sow chaos and confusion. Americans have another reason to celebrate unprecedented action by President Trump to protect Americans from cheap foreign labor.”
After the White House outlined the new policy on Friday, some tech companies including Google and Microsoft this weekend instructed H-1B employees who were traveling outside the U.S. to return immediately, expressing concern they might not be allowed to re-enter without the $100,000 payment, according to workers and immigration lawyers.
Despite the White House’s clarification that the new fee applies only to new visa applications, not existing H-1B holders, there remains “a great degree of uncertainty on the ground,” Parul Koul, president of the union that represents employees at Google owner Alphabet, said during a press conference on Monday to address the new policy.
CBS News spoke with attorneys and other sources about the new policy — here’s what to know.
Who pays the $100,000 fee?
Under current H-1B rules, employers pay the application fees on behalf of workers. Assuming that approach continues, that could deter many employers from picking up the additional $100,000 fees — roughly 10 times what they previously paid for an applicant, Emily Neumann, an immigration attorney and managing partner at Houston-based Reddy Neumann Brown, told CBS MoneyWatch.
“Very few employers would be willing to shell out that kind of money,” she said.
Such an outcome would appear to align with the White House’s goals of spurring employers to hire within the U.S. rather than recruiting foreign workers.
“It is therefore necessary to impose higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of that program while still permitting companies to hire the best of the best temporary foreign workers,” Mr. Trump said in his order.
When does the fee go into effect?
The new fee must be paid in submitting any new H-1B visa application and went into effect at 12:01 am EST on Sept. 21, according to a White House statement.
Each year, the federal government approves 85,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled non-U.S. workers, who typically require at least a bachelor’s degree and a skill in a highly specialized field, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An estimated 700,000 people in the U.S. hold a H-1B visa, according to Capital Economics.
The USCIS says it has already reached its applicant cap for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That means those applications would be excluded from having to pay the fee, but new applicants filing during the next fiscal year would be subject to it, Neumann explained.
What are the main issues for current H-1B holders?
According to the White House, the proclamation “does not prevent any holder of a current H-1B visa from traveling in and out of the United States.”
H-1B visas are valid for three years, but can be extended for an additional three years. A White House official said the one-time $100,000 fee is only charged when applying for a visa for the first time — the payment is not required for current visa holders or those renewing the document, and those fees aren’t changing.
Yet the new rules leave some gray areas for current H-1B holders, Neumann said. For instance, the new fee is targeted at new visa applicants residing outside the U.S. That raises questions about whether current H-1B visa holders who are applying for changes, such as a visa renewal or a change of employer, might be caught up in the new requirement if they leave the U.S., Neumann and other immigration attorneys said.
“Where the question comes in is, what if after September 21 they file that extension and then they need to travel — are they going to be expected to pay that in order to get back into the U.S.?” she said. “That’s kind of an open question right now.”
Although the White House said the fee doesn’t apply to current H-1B holders and won’t impact their travel, Neumann said she believes more guidance is needed because the White House’s Sept. 21 FAQ notes the fee applies to “any other H-1B petitions submitted after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.”
“This makes it sound like it could apply to an employee who travels with any petition filed after September 21, 2025. Although it seems clear that it does not apply to individuals currently in the United States, it is not clear how it impacts those who later travel and have a petition filed after the relevant date,” she said.
For now, Neumann said she is advising her corporate clients to direct their H-1B employees not to leave the U.S.. That was echoed by Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and an immigration attorney.
“Until we have more clarification, which hopefully we’ll have soon, we’re telling people to just sit tight and not travel,” Joseph said.
Asked about the issue of H-1B holders who are applying for a change and who travel outside the U.S., the White House said the one-time $100,000 fee doesn’t apply to renewals or current visa holders.
How does the new fee impact the H-1B program?
The $100,000 fee is likely to have a “chilling effect” on skilled foreign workers moving to the U.S., Joseph of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said.
Although the tech industry has long been the biggest beneficiary of the H-1B program, the visa is designed for highly skilled workers across many industries, he added. Employers who rely on the visa include those in health care, which often recruit medical professionals outside the U.S. in areas where they have shortages, he said.
More than 7 in 10 recipients of H-1B visas are from India, followed by China, at more than 1 in 10 recipients. The remainder of H-1B visa holders come from a range of countries, including Canada, South Korea, the Philippines, Mexico and Taiwan, according to a 2022 USCIS report.
What about the national security exemption?
A provision in Mr. Trump’s proclamation exempts some workers, companies and even entire industries from the new $100,000 fee if they are deemed to support the “national interest” and are adjudged not to pose a threat to the security or welfare of the U.S.
For now, however, it’s unclear how to receive such an exemption, including which federal agency will be charged with approving them, Neumann said.
“There’s no guidance out there yet,” she said. “What are the national interest exemptions going to be? How would a company apply for that, if they can get the entire company to get the exemption? How would the individual apply?”
The White House didn’t respond to questions about how the national security exemption would be applied or which agency will be handling the issue.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
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