The Trump administration on Monday published a proposed regulation that would charge American employers $103,265 for every new H-1B petition subject to the annual visa cap, reviving in a different form a fee that a US court had struck down in June.
The proposal is in addition to other measures already in motion or being planned by the US government. About two-thirds of the money would go to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that processes visa applications, and to the country’s immigration courts. “They want to stop US employers from using H-1B. China’s gonna love this. Europe is gonna love this. The latest proposal is more than a hundred times that figure. The addition of this proposed fee to H-1B cap-subject petitions is intended to provide a dedicated source of revenue to reimburse the federal government for some of the costs of administering the lawful immigration system, including certain costs incurred by other departments and agencies,” the draft notice reads.
The proposal is the Donald Trump administration’s second attempt at the $100,000-a-visa figure. The $103,265 charge is meant to cover the government’s cost of running the legal-immigration system – across DHS and the US departments of Labor, State and Justice, according to the document. The gap between the fee’s rationale that it is to cover immigration cost and its size – $103,265 – is likely to feature prominently in litigation. H-1B fees under the previous Joe Biden administration were raised to $780 per application in its final year, a 70% increase that DHS at the time had said was needed to cover adjudication costs. More than 363,000 Indian students enrolled in US institutions in the 2024-25 academic year, according to a PTI report citing US government data. Earlier reporting noted: US govt proposes new $103K application fee on H-1B visas Washington: In a move that could dent legal immigration prospects for thousands of Indian professionals, the US government has proposed a new $103,265 application fee on H-1B visas that could apply to international students and workers hired within the country. Earlier reporting noted: The proposal by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) comes just an earlier $100,000 H-1B visa fee — which was announced by Donald Trump as a presidential proclamation in September 2025 and subsequently halted by a US court in June this year — is set to expire on September 21. The Trump administration has justified the new fee — which is expected to effectively replace the earlier $100,000 fee – as necessary to recover the administrative costs of managing America’s legal immigration system. DHS caveated in its 67-page draft notice issued on Monday that if the earlier fee survives the legal challenges and Trump’s proclamation is renewed or extended, both fees would be applicable concurrently. Earlier reporting noted: “DHS believes that cap-subject H-1B petitioners are willing to pay and can afford an additional $103,265 fee. It adds that the Department of Labour, the State Department, the Department of Justice and DHS will receive substantial revenues from the new fee, which could bring in an estimated $8.8 billion in revenue from 85,000 visa petitions.
Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-based attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told Bloomberg the intent behind the proposed rule was clear. It’s really simple,” Kuck said, adding: “India’s gonna love this.
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The 30-day comment period on the DHS proposal closes in late September. The original September 2025 proclamation lapses next month unless the administration extends it. Litigation is likely to follow finalisation, drawing on the same tax-versus-fee arguments that succeeded in Boston.
