US proposes $103,265 fee for certain H-1B visa applications

The cost of hiring highly skilled foreign workers could become dramatically higher for some US employers.

Under a proposed rule published Tuesday, August 25, 2026, in the Federal Register, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing a new $103,265 fee for each H-1B visa petition subject to the annual cap.

The fee would be paid by the employer when filing the petition with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

And it would not replace existing charges: the $103,265 would come on top of all other fees and payments already required as part of the process.

DHS says the proposal is intended to help fund a much broader portion of the US immigration system.

A $103,265 fee for cap-subject H-1B petitions

The proposal would not apply to every H-1B petition or visa holder.

The new fee would apply to so-called “cap-subject” petitions, meaning new cases that count toward the H-1B program’s annual numerical limit.

The H-1B program allows US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations that generally require highly specialized knowledge, including jobs in technology, engineering, science and certain research fields.

Each fiscal year, the general H-1B cap is limited to 65,000 new beneficiaries.

An additional 20,000 slots are available under an exemption for workers who have earned a master’s degree or higher from a US institution.

DHS says petitions filed under this “advanced degree exemption,” commonly known as the “master’s cap,” would also be subject to the proposed fee.

By contrast, H-1B petitions that are exempt from the annual cap would not be subject to the additional $103,265 charge.

That includes certain petitions filed by institutions of higher education, affiliated or related nonprofit organizations, nonprofit research organizations and governmental research organizations.

Workers who have already been counted against the H-1B cap may also, in certain circumstances provided for under current rules, be the subject of subsequent petitions without being counted against the cap again.

Why exactly $103,265?

The figure was not chosen at random.

DHS estimates that it wants to fund approximately $8.777 billion in annual costs through the new charge.

Based on an anticipated 85,000 fee-paying petitions per year, the administration calculated a cost of $103,264.57 per petition, rounded up to $103,265.

If the program operates as projected, the new fee would generate $8,777,525,000 in annual revenue.

And that money would not be used solely to process H-1B cases.

DHS plans to distribute the revenue across several agencies involved in the US immigration system: approximately $3 billion for USCIS, $1.05 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), $76.2 million for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), nearly $2.96 billion for immigration courts under the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), $484 million for the State Department and about $1.21 billion for the Department of Labor.

The proposed funding would support immigration case processing, border enforcement, immigration court proceedings, consular operations, fraud detection and certain labor enforcement activities.

A six-figure cost that could weigh on US employers

The US government itself acknowledges the potential economic impact of the measure.

During fiscal year 2025, 28,649 different employers filed initial cap-subject H-1B petitions. Of those, DHS identified 14,541 as small entities.

According to the economic analysis accompanying the proposal, the new fee would have a significant economic impact on 11,051 of those small entities, or 76% of them.

For those businesses, the $103,265 charge would amount to more than 1% of annual revenue, the threshold used by DHS to identify a significant economic impact.

The administration also expects the number of petitions filed to decline.

USCIS received an average of 96,750 cap-subject H-1B petitions per year between 2021 and 2025. With the proposed fee in place, DHS projects roughly 85,000 annual filings.

Washington nevertheless believes demand would remain strong enough to fill the available slots.

The government cites, among other evidence, a 2026 economic study estimating that employers would be willing to absorb one-time costs of between $100,000 and $200,000 to hire certain foreign H-1B workers.

A new mechanism after the $100,000 charge introduced in 2025

The proposal published August 25 comes less than a year after another highly controversial measure targeting the H-1B program.

In September 2025, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment for certain new H-1B petitions, particularly those involving workers outside the United States.

The measure was intended to apply to petitions filed on or after September 21, 2025, and remain in effect for 12 months.

But on June 8, 2026, a federal court in Massachusetts struck down the agency guidance implementing the payment requirement.

The US government appealed the ruling on June 11, and the case remained pending when the new Federal Register proposal was published.

DHS is careful to distinguish the two mechanisms.

The newly proposed $103,265 charge would be a regulatory fee based on a different legal authority from the $100,000 payment established under the 2025 presidential proclamation.

That proclamation is also scheduled to expire on September 21, 2026, unless extended. DHS says it therefore expects the earlier measure to expire before the newly proposed fee could take effect.

The $103,265 fee is not yet in effect

Despite its publication in the Federal Register, US employers do not currently have to pay this new $103,265 fee.

The measure is a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, not a final rule.

A public comment period will remain open through September 24, 2026, allowing businesses, organizations and individuals to submit feedback to the federal government before any final regulation is adopted.

DHS must then review the comments it receives and may revise the proposal before publishing a final rule.

No effective date for the new fee has therefore been set.

If ultimately adopted in its current form, however, the measure would fundamentally change the cost of hiring a new foreign worker through the H-1B cap, adding more than $100,000 per employee before existing filing costs are even taken into account.