President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday, representing an application fee of $ 100,000 for H-1B visas in an effort to focus on reducing the “excessive use of the program”.
“We need great workers, and this largely ensures that this happens,” said Trump from the oval office when signing the order.
White House officials further noted that the measure was designed to encourage society to prefer the hiring of US workers, but at the same time allowing to hire highly qualified foreign workers in specialized fields.
The announcement will limit the entry into the program, unless it is accompanied by payment, the White House official said before signing.
Minister of Trade Howard Lutnick, who spoke on this topic, said, “So you won’t put trainees on H-1B visa anymore.”
“That it’s just no longer economical. If you are going to train people, you will train Americans. … If you have a very sophisticated engineer and want to bring them in … Then you can pay $ 100,000 a year for your H-1B visa.”
Since the office took over the office in January, Trump has launched an extensive intervention of immigration, including steps to reduce some forms of legal immigration. A step towards the transformation of the H-1B visa program is the most important efforts of his administration to rework temporary employment.
India corresponds to most H-1b visas
The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas to employers annually, bringing temporary foreign workers in specialized fields, with another 20,000 visas for workers with an advanced title. Within the current system, it requires a small fee lottery to enter the visa and, if approved, the subsequent fees could be several thousand dollars.
India last year was the largest recipient of H-1B visa last year, which represents 71% of approved recipients, while China was 11.7% far away.
In the first half of 2025, Amazon.com and its unit cloud -computing AWS received approval for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft and Meta platforms had more than 5,000 H-1B visa.
(Tagstotranslate) H-1B visa
