IT Giants Face Heat: Huge H-1B Fee Burden Ahead

Target India. First tariffs. Now H-1B visas. This is the approach of U.S. President Donald Trump. Looking at all this, doubts are being raised on whether he is working according to a particular strategy. Be it American companies or Indian companies, the reason they bring Indian IT professionals to the U.S. under H-1B visas is lower wages. If companies hire Americans instead of professionals brought under H-1B, they would have to pay huge salaries. Moreover, Americans are strict when it comes to work hours. But those who come from India or other countries to the U.S. just for employment don’t care much about work hours—they prioritize completing company targets. That’s why several IT companies try to bring in as many people as possible from India under H-1B visas and make them work. Because of this, jobs are slipping away from Americans—this is President Donald Trump’s grievance.

That’s why a new rule has been introduced: “Train your own people and hire them, or else pay $100,000 per year for every H-1B visa.” $100,000 means nearly ₹90 lakh in our currency. If companies want to hire such people for at least three years, they would have to pay as much as ₹2.7 crore just in fees. Along with the salary to be paid to the IT professional under this visa, companies will now have to calculate this fee and then take a decision. Big IT giants, which have already been laying off employees on a large scale to cut costs, will hardly be willing to pay such huge amounts as H-1B visa fees.

With Trump’s latest decision, IT companies will now bring to the U.S. only those with extraordinary talent, paying such a high fee, and in the coming days companies will no longer deal with these visas as liberally as they do now. Experts say this new policy brought by Trump is a major blow to Indian IT professionals, because nearly 70% of the H-1B visas granted annually by the U.S. are secured by Indians. After India, China stands in second place. Recently, Trump had already openly stated that Indian professionals should not be given jobs, while at the same time imposing strict restrictions on college admissions.

Now, as part of that stance, the H-1B visa fee has been increased to $100,000. Along with this, it was also announced that a Gold Card will be issued for those paying $1 million. It is estimated that this Gold Card scheme could bring in $100 billion. Details about the H-1B visa fee hike and the Gold Card were revealed by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He said that information has already been passed on to America’s big IT companies. Already, in the matter of India, Donald Trump has been acting in a retaliatory way on trade tariffs as well. On India and Brazil alone, Trump has imposed tariffs as high as 50%.