A new $100,000 charge on H-1B visas in the United States coming into force on Sunday will be imposed per petition and not on current holders of valid visas returning to the country, the White House stated on Saturday.
“This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X on Saturday.
Leavitt also stated that existing H-1B visa holders who are presently outside of the country today will not be charged $100,000 to re-enter the United States.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Friday stated the fee, opens new tab would be an annual payment but indicated that specifics were “still being considered.”
Certain firms such as Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab, and Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab, had reacted to the Friday statement by instructing employees who have H-1B visas to stay in the United States, sources said in internal emails seen by Reuters.
An internal memo by Goldman Sachs(GS.N), opens new tab accessed by Reuters on Saturday asked employees who have such visas to be careful while traveling abroad.
Leavitt stated on X that H-1B visa holders can enter and leave the country to the same degree as they do regularly and that the new fee would be in effect only in the next round of the H-1B lottery and not for current visa holders or renewals.
Read more: Azerbaijan visit visa fees for Pakistanis: September 2025 update
The White House announced that the tax was being levied to balance the scale for US workers which it claimed are being “replaced with lower-paid foreign labor.”
The presidential order levying the new charge on H-1B visa applications, signed by President Donald Trump on Friday evening, may disturb the international business of Indian technology services firms that send skilled personnel to the United States, Indian IT industry lobby Nasscom said on Saturday morning.
In a fact sheet released Saturday, the White House indicated it would waive an H-1B visa application fee of $100,000 on a case-by-case basis “if in the national interest.”
US new H-1B visa fee won’t be paid by existing holders, says White House
The fact sheet stated that the percentage of IT workers holding H-1B visas has increased from 32% in FY 2003 to more than 65% in recent years.
It also mandates the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security to publish joint guidance on verification, enforcement, audits, and penalties and instructs the Labor Secretary to initiate a rulemaking to “update the prevailing wage rates for the H-1B program” and “to favor high-skilled, high-wage H-1B workers.”
Friday’s announcement triggered fears among employees throughout broad swaths of corporate America.
On the Chinese social media platform Rednote, several H-1B holders told of dashing back to the US — in one case, merely hours after arriving overseas — to avoid being affected by the new $100,000 charge.
