A federal appeals court rejects Trump's bid to keep in place the $100,000 H-1B visa fee

Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee was blocked by the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images President Donald Trump's plans for H-1B visas are running into legal roadblocks.A federal appeals court on Friday refused to revive Trump's $100,000 fee on new H-1B work visas, dealing another setback to the administration's effort to dramatically raise the cost of hiring highly skilled foreign workers.The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause a lower court ruling that blocked the fee while the administration appeals. A three-judge panel said the government failed to show it was likely to succeed in arguing that the president had the authority to impose the charge.The decision leaves in place a June ruling by US District Judge Leo Sorokin, who said the fee amounted to a tax, which falls under Congress's authority to authorize, rather than the president's."Here, the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called," Sorokin wrote.Trump announced the fee in September 2025 as part of a broader immigration crackdown, stating at the time the H-1B program "has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor."Brian Hunt, an immigration policy compliance lawyer with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP, told Business Insider that it's unclear how many people this court decision will affect, because most US employers hire H-1B workers who are already in the US. "In light of the 100k fee, there are some workers who were about to lose their job offer but can now get a visa after all," Hunt said.The H-1B program issues around 65,000 visas each year, plus another 20,000 for workers with advanced degrees, and is widely used by technology companies to recruit overseas talent. Before Trump's policy, employers generally paid between about $2,000 and $5,000 in visa-related fees.Court filings show the steep increase has sharply reduced demand. By mid-February, US Citizenship and Immigration Services had received few payments of the new fee.The lawsuit challenging the fee was brought by 20 Democratic state attorneys general.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read next Kelsey is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news as well as stories about travel, luxury, and consulting.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. It was also included on Longreads' and Pocket's best of 2022 lists. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her work. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at kvlamis@businessinsider.com or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal @kelseyv.21.Popular storiesDisaster on Denali: Inside a 1,000-foot fall on America's highest peakThrifting is more popular than ever. It's also never been worse.Rolex wouldn't service the vintage watch my mom inherited. Watchmakers say it happens all the time.A tiny, invasive bug and the climate crisis are changing how guitars are made, and shifting the course of music historyThe tourism free-for-all is overGovernment-run boarding schools were founded to 'civilize' Native Americans. Hundreds of dead children remain buried in the schoolyard graves.Meet the Texas minister who helps fly dozens of women to New Mexico every month to get abortionsPeople are flocking to Colorado for the great outdoors, but the air pollution is so bad, it's forcing many to stay insideInside Kabul: An aid worker reveals the devastating chaos that erupted during the US exit from Afghanistan Immigration Visa Trump More Politics President Trump