The Trump H-1B fee

The H-1B visa program allows U.S. companies to hire temporary non-immigrant foreign workers to fill specialized roles. The number of visas granted has varied but generally amounts to about 85,000 workers annually.

In September 2025, the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 petition fee that employers were required to pay, a dramatic increase in the customary fees, which ranged from $1,700 to $4,500. Trump imposed the fees, claiming the program was overused. Twenty states subsequently filed suit against the administration to block the fee increase.

On June 8, Judge Leo Sorokin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts blocked the policy in its entirety, finding that President Donald Trump lacked the authority to impose the fee. In a 42-page ruling, Judge Sorokin ruled that the $100,000 requirement is an unconstitutional tax imposed without congressional delegation, and the agencies that implemented it violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

Sorokin found that the increased H-1B fee meets the functional definition of a tax that the president lacked the authority to unilaterally impose on companies.

"The President had no power or delegated authority to impose a tax on H-1B petitions," Sorokin wrote in the decision.

On June 11, the administration filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. First District Court, and Judge Sorokin granted a stay of the ruling on June 12. This keeps the $100,000 fee in place until the higher court rules on the appeal.

Continuing uncertainty

The ruling on the Trump H-1B visa fee may be good news for some companies, but there's still much that needs to be resolved, according to industry experts.

It could provide significant relief for employers, said Tahmina Watson, owner and founder at Watson Immigration Law, whose clients include startups, SMBs and nonprofit organizations.

These companies have been deeply affected by the $100,000 H-1B fee, she said.

For many employers, the fee made the H-1B program financially impractical and severely limited their ability to recruit and retain the talent they need. At least for now, the court's decision provides a reprieve.

"For many employers, the fee made the H-1B program financially impractical and severely limited their ability to recruit and retain the talent they need," Watson said. "At least for now [pending appeal], the court's decision provides a reprieve."

The decision might provide relief for companies if it's upheld, but for now, there's uncertainty, and most will wait to make hiring decisions, said Shashi Bellamkonda, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, a global research and advisory firm.

The practical question for tech leaders is what to do with the roles they froze when the fee was imposed, Bellamkonda said. Since that time, organizations have had three ways to respond to the fee: pausing H-1B-dependent hiring entirely, shifting those roles offshore to global capability centers or absorbing the cost for a small number of genuinely critical positions.

"The companies in the first group now have a window to restart, and they should use it," he said. "Petitions filed while the [decision] stands are filed under the lower fee structure."

The ruling's appeal will add to the uncertainty around what companies should do, Bellamkonda said.

"Companies that built their entire specialized talent pipeline on a single visa category got burned in September, and they will get burned again by whatever comes next," he said.

Companies may go ahead with H-1B applications for open, highly specialized roles and where there are visible shortages in the U.S., while the fee is vacated, Bellamkonda said. But they should budget in a contingency anticipating a return of the fee and build parallel paths for workers, including using other visa categories such as O-1 and L-1 where they fit, building global capability centers and remote-first structures for roles that do not require US presence.

"Companies have to be careful about not using this visa category to displace U.S. employees or to bypass talent available here," he said.

In many cases, IT leaders have delayed AI and data engineering hires for two quarters while waiting for clarity that never came, while competitors filled those roles offshore, Bellamkonda said.

"The lesson is that the cost of uncertainty compounds faster than the cost of any fee, and the companies that built optionality kept moving while everyone else waited," he said.

A fee few are able or willing to pay

Very few companies are willing or able to pay the increased H-1B fee, so the ruling should bring relief, but there will be uncertainty until the case is ultimately resolved after the appeal, said Mark Stevens, an immigration attorney at Clark Hill.

The $100,000 fee was mainly focused on technology companies, but it also affected academia and the healthcare industry, which depend on foreign workers on H-1B visas, he said. The fee was prohibitive for smaller tech firms but even gave pause for the tech giants.

"Even a Meta or an Amazon, if they're doing this for thousands of workers, are going to have a hard time paying for it," Stevens said. "The rule forced companies to only petition for employees who are ultra valuable, and there aren't that many people who meet that description."

There are some strategies companies can use instead of paying the H-1B fee, he said.

For example, the H-1B fee applies only to new workers, so employers could bring in foreign workers already in the U.S. on an H-1B for another employer. But the lack of new workers will mean the candidate pool will be smaller going forward.

"The pool of current H-1B workers will be shrinking as they get green cards or [other legal status], so there will be fewer remaining people to choose from that already have H-1B status," Stevens said. "We're dealing with labor market flexibility, and how you deal with it depends on your situation."

Stevens expects that the First Circuit could decide the appeal relatively soon, but even this may not bring relief quickly.

"Right now, we're in a bit of a wait-and-see. Relief may be around the corner, but when there's an order of this nature, often it takes a bit of time for an agency to implement it," he said. "They'll have to update their website or change their forms. So, I wouldn't rush to file a petition today until that implementation has happened."

Jim O'Donnell is a news director for TechTarget, where he covers IT strategy and enterprise ESG.