Trump's $100,000 H1-B fee to hit Indians the hardest

US President Donald Trump on Saturday (India time) announced a sharp increase in the cost of applying for H1-B visas, raising the fee to $100,000 per petition.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA & TIKAM SHARMA

The decision, set to take effect immediately, is projected to hit India hardest, since Indians form the overwhelming majority of H1-B holders and Indian IT firms are among the biggest users of the programme.

According to the latest US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data, roughly 2.8 lakh Indians are in the US on HI-B visas-far ahead of China (just over 50,000) and Canada (under 5,000). In FY 2024, USCIS approved 399,395 H1-B petitions, of which 141,205 were for new employment and the rest were renewals and extensions. Around 71-73% of those approvals went to Indian nationals, translating to 191,000 in FY 2023 and 207,000 in FY 2024.

The programme is dominated by large technology firms. Amazon secured 10,044 approvals in FY 2025, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) with 5,505, Microsoft with 5,189, Meta with 5,123, Apple with 4,202 and Google with 4,181. Based on the Indian share, Amazon alone employs more than 7,000 Indians on H1-Bs, while TCS employs nearly 4,000. Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Cognizant have also long relied on the visa to place thousands of engineers at client sites in the US

Trump, while justifying the steep hike, claimed that the visa system was "being abused".

Describing it as "terrible," he said it had allowed companies to close IT divisions, fire American staff and hire cheaper foreign workers instead. The proclamation highlighted examples of firms securing thousands of H1-Bs while simultaneously cutting US jobs: one firm approved for 5,000 workers laid off 15,000 employees; another obtained 1,700 visas while cutting 2,400 jobs in Oregon; a third eliminated 27,000 jobs since 2022 while securing 25,000 visas; a fourth cut 1,000 jobs even as it obtained 1,100 H1-Bs. Experts said those unnamed companies were linked to India.