The US has proposed a $103,265 H-1B visa fee for foreign workers, seeking to make the charge permanent after a court struck down an earlier $100,000 fee.
Foreign employers may have to pay an additional $103,265 to sponsor workers under the US H-1B visa programme, under a new proposed rule from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would make the charge permanent through formal regulation rather than presidential proclamation.
The proposal was posted for public inspection on Monday and is scheduled for formal publication in the Federal Register on Tuesday. The charge would apply to H-1B petitions falling under the annual statutory cap of 65,000 regular visas plus 20,000 reserved for applicants with advanced degrees from US institutions, a combined 85,000 cap-subject petitions each year.
It would be payable at the time a petition is filed, on top of existing H-1B filing fees, though it would not apply to cap-exempt petitions, including many positions at universities and nonprofit or government research institutions.
A New Legal Basis
The proposal follows a federal judge’s ruling in June that struck down an earlier $100,000 H-1B fee, which the Trump administration had imposed through a presidential proclamation in September 2025; the judge found the charge amounted to an unconstitutional tax that the president lacked authority to impose.
DHS says the new $103,265 fee rests on different legal authority, formal rulemaking rather than proclamation and is legally distinct from the fee that was struck down.
A Boston-based appeals court is currently reviewing the June ruling, while a separate court is considering a challenge to the fee brought by a major business group. The original proclamation is due to expire in September, one year after it was signed, which is part of why DHS is moving to establish a regulatory alternative now. Notably, if the government wins its appeal and the proclamation is reinstated, employers could theoretically face both the $100,000 proclamation fee and the new $103,265 regulatory fee on the same petition, though that scenario has not been confirmed by DHS.
How the Fee Was Calculated
DHS says it identified approximately $8.78 billion in costs across the federal immigration system that it believes H-1B employers should cover rather than taxpayers. Dividing that figure by the roughly 85,000 cap-subject petitions filed annually produces the $103,265 figure. The agency says the revenue would be split across six federal bodies: US Citizenship and Immigration Services would receive about $3 billion, the Executive Office for Immigration Review roughly $2.96 billion, Immigration and Customs Enforcement about $1.05 billion, the Labor Department about $1.21 billion, the State Department about $484 million, and Customs and Border Protection around $76 million.
“The proposed H-1B fee is intended to recover the costs incurred across the federal government to adjudicate, vet, and support lawful immigration programs that otherwise must be funded by taxpayers,” USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said.
Companies and affected workers will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule once it is formally published, after which DHS could finalise it by the end of the year.
Context
H-1B visas, which currently cost employers around $1,500 in administrative fees, are valid for three to six years. Government figures show that roughly two-thirds of H-1B jobs are computer-related, though the visa is also used to hire engineers, educators and healthcare workers.
“If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said when the original policy was introduced last year.
The H-1B programme has been a recurring flashpoint between the Trump administration and the US technology industry, which relies heavily on foreign workers, including Nigerians. The new proposal marks the latest in a series of Trump administration measures aimed at curbing legal immigration.
