Reflections on Changes to the U.S. H-1B Visa Under the Trump Administration. Part-A: The Facts
News and the facts.
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Yesterday, big news emerged in the IT field: the US government has raised the H-1B visa application fee to $100,000.
Some Facts of H1-B Visa (source: ChatGPT):
Purpose: The H-1B visa allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations that require a bachelor's degree or higher.
Cap: The annual cap for H-1B visas is set at 85,000, with 20,000 reserved for individuals holding a U.S. master's degree or higher.
H-1B's annual 85,000 visa quota is currently distributed via a random lottery.
Duration: The H‑1B is initially granted for up to 3 years and can be extended to a maximum of 6 years in total.
Between 2020 and 2023, India accounted for approximately 73.7% of all H-1B visa approvals
In fiscal year 2023, Indian applicants received 68,825 initial H-1B visas (around 58% of the total), while Chinese applicants received 16,094 (14%) initial visas.
In fiscal year 2025, Amazon.com Services LLC was the leading sponsor of H-1B visas in the United States, securing 10,044 approvals. [source]
I extracted the following keywords from the above:
Tech. Giant
Most Hi-B visas are sponsored by big tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.University (US) degree related
Indian
This will impact the Indian students the most.
Then, from the above, if the $100,000 is a one-off payment (at application or renewal, not an annual fee), that’s not as significant an impact as some think.
Why? According to Levels.fyi,
The average starting salary for a software engineer at Amazon USA is $262,000. Averaging SDE1 and SDE2 salaries brings it to $333,000. The new H‑1B visa fee of $100,000 represents only about 30% of a single year’s salary—and spread over the visa’s 3+ year duration, it amounts to roughly 10%.
10% is not a game-changer for global tech giants. It’s reasonable to assume that many Indian students would accept a 10% lower salary to help cover part of the visa expenses. In fact, with fewer applicants, it may actually become easier for FAANG companies to hire talent—no longer worrying about the lottery.
Some may wonder, “How about small and medium-sized IT companies? (in terms of hiring talents)” I will share my advice in the upcoming article.
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