Trump extends $100,000 H-1B fee for another year despite ongoing legal battle

US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Friday to extend the $100,000 H-1B visa fee for another 12 months, until September 2027. The fee — which has already been vacated by a US court and is facing legal challenges — was set to expire on September 21 before Trump’s move to extend it.The Trump administration stated that the $100,000 visa fee had led to a major reduction in the use of the H-1B visa. (via Unsplash)In addition, the US commander-in-chief signed an executive order directing his top Cabinet officials to consider an employer's recent or planned layoffs of US workers when considering H-1B visa applications.A White House statement characterised these moves as part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on alleged abuse of the H-1B visa programme, which has been a preferred route for Indian professionals to work in and immigrate to the United States.The Trump administration stated that the $100,000 visa fee had led to a major reduction in the use of the H-1B visa.“Since the 2025 Proclamation took effect, H-1B registrations filed by the largest IT outsourcing firms have been reduced by 92%,” the White House’s statement reads.Also Read: Trump extends $100K H-1B fee by 12 months; India, with 71% share, most affectedWhat will be the impact?However, it is unclear whether the extension of the $100,000 fee will have a practical impact, given that a US district court vacated the government’s guidance implementing the fee in June this year. The US government is barred from collecting the application fee while its appeal is being heard in court.The Trump administration has argued that abuse of the H-1B visa programme had led to significant downward pressure on wages for US workers and even the outsourcing of jobs. It has claimed that this problem is particularly acute among students and professionals in the tech industry.Also Read: H-1B not enough for a US Green Card? Experts explain why Indians are turning to the $800,000 EB-5 route“The number of foreign STEM workers in the United States had more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, while overall STEM employment only increased 44.5% during that time. The share of IT workers with H-1B visas had risen from 32% in FY 2003 to over 65% in recent years before the 2025 Proclamation. The Proclamation has also caused a nearly 97% decrease in consular processing requests and a shift from lower-paid foreign labor toward higher-skilled and higher-wage workers,” the White House argued on Friday.The Department of Homeland Security's December 2025 rule to replace the randomised H-1B visa lottery with a weighted system based on wage levels had led to a nearly 40% drop in application registrations. In August, the Trump administration proposed a fresh $103,265 H-1B visa fee that would also affect applicants within the United States applying for the roughly 85,000 capped H-1B visas available every year. This would adversely affect foreign students hoping to enter the US workforce and other first-time H-1B applicants already in the country, who were not covered by September 2025's $100,000 fee.