After wave of panic, impact of US visa hike still unclear

The United States' snap decision to impose a $100,000 fee on the H-1B visa used extensively by foreign high-tech workers sent panic and confusion through technology companies, but experts are still weighing its impact.

On Sept 19, US President Donald Trump issued a proclamation that nonimmigrants applying for the visa would need to pay the fee starting on Sept 21 — two days after the announcement.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick initially said the fee was an annual charge. However, it was later clarified as being a one-off payment. "If you're going to train people, you're going to train Americans," Lutnick said following the announcement. "If you have a very sophisticated engineer and you want to bring them in, … then you can pay $100,000 a year for your H-1B visa."

Companies with large numbers of H-1B workers already in the US issued urgent advice to them not to travel abroad. Tech and finance giants Microsoft, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase were among those companies that issued e-mail advisories.

About 400,000 H-1B applications for high-skilled foreign workers were approved in 2024, more than twice the number in the 2000 fiscal year, according to a survey by Pew Research.

In 2023, India took the lion's share with 73 percent of all H-1B visa holders. China ranked a distant second with 12 percent of the total. Computer-related jobs accounted for about 65 percent of the H-1B workforce, the survey said.

Amazon employs the largest number of H-1B workers. The company hired more than 11,000 such workers in 2023, close to 3 percent of the total. Google, Apple, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and Meta are among the top 10 companies with H-1B workers, with each numbering in the thousands.