{"id":1890,"date":"2025-09-21T17:45:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T17:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=1890"},"modified":"2025-09-21T17:45:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T17:45:53","slug":"trumps-h-1b-visa-fee-to-hit-us-employers-with-14bn-annual-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=1890","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s H-1B visa fee to hit US employers with $14bn annual bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=c51fc02c-0859-4908-9c3d-c3c1d12550c4&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>US employers are facing a $14bn annual bill for hiring skilled foreign workers after Donald Trump slapped a $100,000 fee on the cost of securing a visa for new employees to enter the country.<\/p>\n<p>Late on Friday the US president signed a proclamation introducing a $100,000 application fee for the H-1B foreign worker visa. <\/p>\n<p>Following chaos at airports on Saturday as workers hurried to return to the US, the White House clarified that it would apply only to new applicants starting from the next visa lottery in February onwards, not current H-1B holders. <\/p>\n<p>The White House said the move was designed to encourage companies to hire American workers. Trump\u2019s proclamation said that some carve-outs would be offered at the administration\u2019s discretion, but it was not clear how widely these would be available.<\/p>\n<p>Over 141,000 new H-1B visas were issued last year, according to figures from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. If the number of applications continues at the same level with the new fee of $100,000 apiece, that would leave American companies paying $14bn each year.<\/p>\n<p>Silicon Valley relies heavily on H-1B visas to hire engineers, scientists and coders from overseas. The non-immigrant visa is also widely used by specialist industries including accountancy firms and healthcare companies. Roughly two-thirds of 2023 recipients worked in the IT industry, according to USCIS. <\/p>\n<p>About 400,000 H-1B applications were approved last year; the majority were people renewing their visas. <\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-layout\" data-component=\"flourish\" data-component-id=\"25238850\" data-component-type=\"flourish-in-article\">\n<figure class=\"n-content-picture n-content-layout__container\"><picture data-asset-type=\"flourish\" data-flourish-id=\"25238850\" data-flourish-type=\"visualisation\">\n<div id=\"25238850\" class=\"cp-message o-message o-message--inform o-message--notice\" data-o-component=\"o-message\">\n<div class=\"o-message__container\">\n<div class=\"o-message__content\">\n<p class=\"o-message__content-main\">Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.flourish.studio%2Fvisualisation%2F25238850%2Fthumbnail%3FcacheBuster%3D976930?source=cp-content-pipeline&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=2626&amp;dpr=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/picture><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Prominent members of Trump\u2019s political coalition have previously expressed support for the H-1B programme, including his largest donor Elon Musk. But others such as former White House strategist Steve Bannon have called for the scheme to be abolished so that American workers are protected. <\/p>\n<p>Garry Tan, chief executive of start-up incubator Y Combinator, said in a post on X that the decision by Trump was a mistake that \u201ckneecaps start-ups\u201d and represented a \u201cmassive gift to every overseas tech hub\u201d including Vancouver and Toronto in Canada. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the middle of an AI arms race, we\u2019re telling builders to build elsewhere. We need American Little Tech to win \u2014 not $100K toll booths,\u201d Tan added.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers acting for major US companies told the FT that their clients were awaiting further clarification from the Department of State, which issues visas and had yet to make any statement on Sunday. Companies were also considering bringing a legal challenge to contest the proposed fees. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe executive branch has the authority to impose a fee to recoup money to administer the H-1B scheme,\u201d said Matthew Dunn, a partner at law firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer. \u201cTo add on $100,000 is totally outside their regulatory power.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think it\u2019s very likely that we will see a court intervention blocking this proclamation,\u201d Dunn added. <\/p>\n<p>The president is facing more than 135 legal challenges and is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on the validity of blanket tariffs he imposed on trading partners earlier this year, after two lower courts ruled that the move was unlawful. <\/p>\n<p>The administration is expected to take forward wider revisions to the H-1B scheme as set out in Friday\u2019s proclamation including lifting the benchmark salary used to determine whether a recipient\u2019s visa should be approved. <\/p>\n<p>Republican lawmakers have also called for H-1B visas to be allocated based on ranked salary rather than at random, as is the case with the current lottery. <\/p>\n<p>Employers are considering switching to alternative visa types including the L-1 category designed for management and employees with \u201cspecialised knowledge\u201d. But the requirements of this scheme are more onerous as staff have to be employed overseas for at least one year. <\/p>\n<p>Gary Cohn, a former economic adviser to Trump who is now a vice chair at IBM, said the White House\u2019s clarification meant that \u201ceveryone who\u2019s got an H-1B visa understands their status and understands how it\u2019s going to work\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the CBS Face The Nation programme on Sunday, Cohn said the increased fee was a \u201cgood idea\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>Companies are \u201cnot just going to ask for a visa and put a name in the lottery unless that is a highly skilled person who you need, who you cannot hire in the US\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Trumps #H1B #visa #fee #hit #employers #14bn #annual #bill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world US employers are facing a $14bn annual bill for hiring skilled foreign workers after Donald Trump slapped a $100,000 fee on the cost of securing a visa for new employees to enter the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[996,997,592,995,994,992,164,192,993],"class_list":{"0":"post-1890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-14bn","9":"tag-annual","10":"tag-bill","11":"tag-employers","12":"tag-fee","13":"tag-h1b","14":"tag-hit","15":"tag-trumps","16":"tag-visa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}