The Cost That Stopped the Clock

On September 21, 2025, a $100,000 processing fee was attached to all new H-1B visa petitions by executive order under the Trump administration. While it does not affect current visa holders or renewals, the fee’s arrival triggered a swift and often disoriented global reaction from companies, workers, and governments.

Within hours, Silicon Valley began recalibrating. Memos circulated inside Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Startups paused job offers. Dozens of Indian tech workers disembarked mid-flight from San Francisco, fearing they wouldn’t be able to return without incurring the fee. Panic gave way to strategic review, especially for companies that depend on a globally mobile workforce.

A Burden Too Big for Some to Bear

For early-career engineers, this fee presents an almost insurmountable barrier. The cost, now comparable to an annual salary for many applicants, makes it unlikely that startups or mid-sized firms will sponsor junior hires under this visa category. According to USCIS records, more than 85,000 H-1B visas were granted in 2024, with over 70% going to Indian nationals. Many of those recipients held degrees from American universities and had job offers from U.S. tech companies. The new rule sends a clear signal: unless your skills are considered top-tier and the employer has deep pockets, the door has narrowed.

Companies are making decisions on a week-to-week basis. A recruiter at a major cloud software provider shared that they’ve paused all new international tech hires pending legal review. Even firms with longstanding H-1B sponsorship programmes are shifting their strategies. Some are exploring intra-company transfers, while others are accelerating investment in Canadian and European engineering hubs.

Hiring Economics Under Pressure

The $100,000 fee comes on top of existing application costs, which already exceed $10,000 when legal fees, premium processing, and compliance are considered. For startups, this additional outlay is no longer justifiable unless the hire is revenue-critical. Garry Tan of Y Combinator noted that early-stage firms will be disproportionately impacted, pushing more startups to remain domestic in hiring or build fully remote teams from inception.

Larger corporations may absorb the cost, but not without consequence. Some U.S.-based HR departments impose an internal quota to contrast the international recruitment capacity of a given team in a given year. From an economic point of view, the hiring process would be only one facet of the limitation on talent mobility, R&D time scale, and project delivery across borders.

Existing H-1B Holders: In a Grey Zone

Although existing H-1B visa holders are exempt from the fee, the initial announcement lacked clarity, triggering confusion. Airlines, visa officers, and border agents were caught off guard. Multiple reports surfaced of H-1B holders attempting to return to the U.S. before the rule came into effect, uncertain whether they would be permitted reentry without financial penalty.

In response, the White House issued a clarification: those holding valid visas would not be required to pay the fee unless filing a new petition. Still, ambiguity persists. Some visa holders are now reluctant to travel internationally, fearing sudden changes or further restrictions. Immigration lawyers advising Fortune 500 clients are recommending travel freezes and more conservative visa planning through 2026.

India, Canada, and the Global Talent Equation

The fallout has rippled across borders. India’s IT services sector—heavily reliant on the H-1B pathway—has been forced to recalibrate. According to Nasscom, the fee poses a challenge to ongoing project timelines and delivery commitments. Companies like Infosys and Wipro have started reallocating U.S.-bound personnel to domestic and nearshore centres.

Canada and the UK are seeing a noticeable uptick in applications from tech professionals originally targeting the U.S. market. Canada’s Global Talent Stream has emerged as a preferred alternative, offering processing times under four weeks without exorbitant fees. The UK’s Skilled Worker visa, though more administratively intensive, is also drawing renewed interest from recruiters and candidates alike.

Middle Eastern hubs, particularly in the UAE, have entered the conversation as well. Dubai’s efforts to attract remote workers and digital entrepreneurs are aligning with a moment of friction in U.S. immigration.

Brands and Their Next Moves

In speaking with HR executives and legal counsel at multinationals, one consistent theme emerges: companies are now segmenting roles by location-specific cost and policy exposure. Where once an entire engineering team might have been built in San Francisco, the future now looks more distributed—engineers in Toronto, product managers in London, and DevOps roles in Bengaluru.

Legal departments are drawing new budget lines. Finance teams are creating separate line items for visa contingencies. Leadership teams are asking new questions: What percentage of our tech workforce is tied to a single country’s immigration system? How exposed are our R&D timelines to policy volatility?

This visa change has brought immigration out of the HR backroom and into the boardroom.

A Global Talent Market, Rewritten

Over 400,000 applications were submitted for the H-1B 2025 cycle. With the introduction of the new fee, analysts forecast a 60–70% decline in new applications over the next two years. That shortfall won’t just affect U.S. companies. It will trigger a migration of talent and capital toward jurisdictions that are perceived as more stable and accessible.

What’s being reshaped is not just policy but preference.

Talent is fluid. Capital follows talent. And policy, when sudden and steep, reroutes both.

What This Means for Global Brands

Therefore, this calls for a more deliberate approach to planning the workforce. It challenges assumptions about where teams are built and how mobility is managed. This, for many brands, will accelerate digital-first practices and enhance reliance on local market hiring. The others will concentrate on legal resources, trying to achieve predictability when possible.

In my editorial opinion, this $100,000 H-1B fee stands at a fulcrum of global hiring practice. What happens next will determine how agile, inclusive, and competitive the company remains in the unfolding landscape.