WASHINGTON – Turns out more is less when overhauling visa fees for foreign college graduates.
The Trump administration is proposing doubling the fees to more than $200,000 for H-1B visa applicants from abroad in specialty occupations. The move comes after fresh applications from abroad slowed to a trickle in the months after President Donald Trump applied a $100,000 fee to them a year ago.
A federal judge blocked the fee in June as "unlawful." The Justice Department has appealed.
The initial higher fee generated $8.5 million from 85 applicants from abroad during the first five months before they were blocked in court, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. But because the number of applicants dropped 87%, the agency collected $28
million less during that period.
"This is just a way to kill the H-1B program," Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told USA TODAY about the combined fees. "This is just one of the many nails in the coffin of legal immigration in this country."
The H-1B program, which distributes 85,000 new visas per year under a cap, remained popular enough after Trump's initial fee that the work permits are distributed by lottery. Tech companies, health care organizations and universities continue to hire foreign workers who are already in the United States at the previous fees of $2,000 to $5,000. And universities and nonprofit research centers are excluded from the cap and hire tens of thousands more foreign workers.
But the Department of Homeland Security proposed Aug. 24 to charge $103,265 for each of the 85,000 new applicants each year. If Trump's initial fee is eventually upheld in court, the result would mean an employer would have to pay $203,265 for each applicant from abroad.
Critics say the fees will devastate the H-1B program and squelch innovation from foreign workers. But the administration argued Trump's initial fee didn't aim to raise money but to regulate immigration. The proposed additional fee is to help pay for the entire immigration system.
"As a technology professional living and working in Reston, Virginia, I regularly compete for the same roles as large numbers of H-1B workers," Benjamin Wolf, who submitted a comment to the department supporting the fee proposal. "In this market, the lower effective cost of sponsoring foreign labor has repeatedly put American candidates at a disadvantage."
Who relies on H-1B visas?
Tech companies historically have been the largest users of H-1B visas. Amazon ranked No. 1 through June 30 this year with 9,337 workers approved through the program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Apple had 3,879, Google had 3,180 and Meta had 2,563.
The visas last for up to six years but the workers can remain longer if sponsored for permanent residency, a process that can take years. Immigration groups such as FWD.us estimate there are 730,000 visa holders and an additional 550,000 dependents.
Universities and health care organizations also consider the visas crucial. Educational institutions participating in the program include Stanford University with 284 H-1B workers, the Mayo Clinic with 276 and Washington University in St. Louis with 219.
Veena Dubal, general counsel for the American Association of University Professors, said colleges and universities employ about 40,600 faculty members on H-1B visas. Higher education positions don’t fall under the cap but graduates seeking jobs with advanced degrees do.
"Making the bridge from U.S. universities into the broader research economy available only to the wealthiest employers will make the United States less attractive as a place to study and build a career," Dubal told USA TODAY.
The University of Michigan employed about 850 workers with H-1B visas last year, according to a court filing opposed to Trump's $100,000 fee. About one-fifth of the school's 450 applicants each year would have had to pay the fee, costing the university $9 million, according to the filing from Arthur Lupia, vice president for research and innovation, and Judith Pennywell, director of the school’s international center.
The workers have "highly specialized knowledge, training and skill" unavailable in the domestic workforce such as performing cardiac surgery and research in chronic disease, lasers and robotics. But the fee is "effectively a new tax on bringing some of the best minds to America," according to Lupia and Pennywell.
Health care organizations warn of doctor, nurse shortages without H-1B visas
Among health care companies, St. Jude Children’s Research had 199 H-1B workers through June 30, the Cleveland Clinic had 158 and Massachusetts General Hospital had 135.
Anantha Shekhar, who was dean of the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, said in a court filing that he was opposed to the initial fee hike and that research "will be hampered" without H-1B visa workers. The school's 542 H-1B visa holders conduct "pioneering research" on mobility for the disabled, especially veterans, as well as on artificial intelligence and vision, he said.
Advocates for the visas contend a projected shortage of 86,000 doctors in the next decade could be blunted with H-1B visas, after 23,000 foreign-trained doctors used them from 2001 to 2024.
"President Trump’s illegal $100,000 H-1B visa fee creates unnecessary – and illegal – financial burdens on California public employers and other providers of vital services, exacerbating labor shortages in key sectors," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in announcing a lawsuit against the fee hike.
H-1B visas remain contentious
The H-1B visa program strikes a nerve.
Trump upset tech companies when he ordered the $100,000 fee on applicants still overseas in September 2025. But then he upset his supporters after defending the program in November 2025, saying "you do also have to bring in talent." Some of his supporters contend the program should be abolished to reduce the competition for U.S. jobs.
The proposal for a $103,265 fee set off a firestorm of more than 5,000 comments in the first week.
Alvester Johnson III, who identified himself as an IT professional in Phoenix, supported the higher fee.
"In my experience, H-1B workers are frequently used in IT support, network operations, physical security systems, and data center environments – the same roles American workers like me compete for," Johnson wrote. "The low existing fees make it artificially cheap for employers to prefer foreign specialty labor over investing in or retaining U.S. workers."
But Edwin Zhang, who said he works at a hospital in front-line patient care, opposed the higher fee because international medical graduates are "a large, essential portion of our clinical workforce." The higher fee excludes some nonprofit and university-affiliated hospitals, but critics say it could still hurt rural and medically underserved areas.
"These facilities already operate on thin financial margins," Zhang wrote. "This will worsen existing national physician shortages, disproportionately harm rural and inner‑city communities, and place avoidable strain on the broader U.S. health‑care delivery system."
The department is collecting public comment about the proposal through Sept. 24.
Trump's $100,000 fee on H-1B visas blocked in court
Trump’s $100,000 fee remains at the heart of several pending lawsuits.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts overturned Trump’s $100,000 fee in June as "unlawful." Sorokin ruled that the proclamation "does not provide any explanation for imposing a tax on employers" and that it was "arbitrary and capricious."
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block the judge’s ruling in July while the government appeals so the higher visa fee remains uncollected for now.
Justice Department lawyers contend in their appeal that the fee wasn’t intended to raise money, but to "regulate immigration." That’s their argument for why the fee hike is justified – because it’s an immigration policy set by the executive, rather than a tax imposed by Congress as Sorokin found.
"That is wrong – the Proclamation is designed to regulate immigration, not to raise revenue. But it is irrelevant," the lawyers wrote. "The President also has inherent authority to exclude aliens from entering the nation."
Proposed H-1B visa fee to pay for 'administering the lawful immigration system'
While that appeal is percolating, the Department of Homeland Security proposed the $103,265 fee "to generate dedicated revenue to support the costs of administering the lawful immigration system."
The higher fee is projected to generate $8.8 billion in revenue over a decade. The proposal is to provide $3 billion to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, $1 billion for vetting applications to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $76 million for traveler services to Customs and Border Protection and $3 billion for the court system called the Executive Office for Immigration Review. The Labor Department would get $1.2 billion and the State Department $484 million.
"The purpose of this [proposal] is to generate additional revenue to support the costs of administering the lawful immigration system," the department said.
Projections for generating billions in revenue from higher fees disputed
The department’s funding projection was based on a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study estimated about half of employers in recent years would have hired a worker under the H-1B program even with an additional $100,000 fee because the wages for such workers are lower than for U.S. workers.
"Between 45 and 64 percent of the H-1Bs hired between 2021 and 2024 would still be hired" with the higher fee, said the report from George Borjas, an economics professor at Harvard University.
But only 85 new applications for H-1B visas were filed during the first five months under the $100,000 fee. Other researchers disputed Borjas' findings and questioned whether foreign visa holders are paid less, such as in a study in the Journal of Labor Research. The Labor Department requires employers to attest they are paying prevailing wages.
James Kenny, a spokesperson for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is fighting Trump's higher fee in federal court, said the additional fee "will make it cost-prohibitive for even more U.S. employers – especially the thousands of start-ups and small and midsize businesses who rely on H-1Bs – to utilize the program."
"The program helps companies expand, innovate, and create jobs across their operations," Kenny said.
David Bier, a director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, argued the department’s latest proposed fee hike would be devastating to the H-1B program and the economy by sending jobs overseas and reducing innovation.
"The new fee-tax will crush the H-1B program, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of talented workers," Bier wrote in his blog. "The H‑1B fee will undermine American innovation, competitiveness, fiscal security, and ultimately prosperity."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump wants to increase fees for this visa. It could top $200,000
