Trump's steep H-1B visa fee to hit TCS, Infy hard

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump’s $100,000 price tag for new H-1B workers hired from outside the US will have punishing effects for the IT outsourcing and staffing industries that have long been a target of both parties.

- ANDREW KREIGHBAUM & ERIC FAN

The fee is the biggest restriction the Trump administration has imposed so far on employment of skilled foreign workers.

A Bloomberg News analysis found it will have a disproportionate impact on multinational staffing firms that act as middlemen for companies seeking H-1B workers. Those middlemen include Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Cognizant.

Almost 90% of new H-1B hires at those three companies between May 2020 and May 2024 were approved at US consulates. The workers would have cost each of them hundreds of millions more if the fee had been in effect.

More than 93% of new Infosys H-1B hires in that timeframe—upwards of 10,400 workers—would have been hit with the $100,000 fee, according to the Bloomberg analysis, adding up to more than a billion dollars in visa charges.

Tata would have had to pay the fee for 6,500 workers over that period, or 82% of newly approved H-1B workers. Cog-

nizant would be faced with the charge for more than 5,600 employees, or 89% of new H-1B hires.