Economy Trump to impose $100,000 fee per year for H-1B visas, in blow to tech

H-!B visas will now cost the candidate or employer $100,000. Pretty certain this is happening to tank Silicon Valley such is his vendetta against Gavin. But here's the kicker, Lutnick told everyone from The Oval Office it was a yearly fee when it's a one time. What with this and Rubio threatening to take American passports away no wonder everyone's in a state of turmoil.

And now this shit starts happening:
- At Trump discreption
 
- If wasnt for foreign workers we wondt even be here talking now. My entire city was created by them
I understand why people want the easy life of staying in the same country and doing the same stuff every day but live a little, you know? I would have been perfectly happy staying in the UK but for want of new adventures. And I'm sure as fuck not going to feel guilty that husband was better suited than any other person when we moved here and sure as fuck the same with my job in Silicon Valley.. I'd sold the company's products before and well spoken English seems to be good as a receptionist. Was I breaking the bank? Nope. Could an American have done my job? Probably.

But when I worked for an Indian company in the UK for over a decade who used to bring a ton of software developers in from Chennai I didn't go apeshit about it.
 
I understand why people want the easy life of staying in the same country and doing the same stuff every day but live a little, you know? I would have been perfectly happy staying in the UK but for want of new adventures. And I'm sure as fuck not going to feel guilty that husband was better suited than any other person when we moved here and sure as fuck the same with my job in Silicon Valley.. I'd sold the company's products before and well spoken English seems to be good as a receptionist. Was I breaking the bank? Nope. Could an American have done my job? Probably.

But when I worked for an Indian company in the UK for over a decade who used to bring a ton of software developers in from Chennai I didn't go apeshit about it.
- It's just capitalism. A company has to make the maximum profit. For doo that, they will cut corners. I undestant way americans dont want al their jobs taking by foreigners, but to act like they dont need a few capable ones.
 

Trump's new visa fees spur offshoring talks, hiring turmoil​

By Aditya Soni and Echo Wang

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The Trump administration's hefty new visa fees for H-1B workers have prompted high-level talks inside companies in Silicon Valley and beyond on the possibility of moving more jobs overseas - precisely the outcome the policy was meant to stop.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced the change to the visa program that has long been a recruitment pathway for tech firms and encouraged international students to pursue postgraduate courses in the U.S.

While the $100,000 levy applies only to new applicants - not current holders as first announced - the confusion around its roll-out and steep cost are already leading companies to pause recruitment, budgeting and workforce plans, according to Reuters interviews of founders, venture capitalists and immigration lawyers who work with technology companies.

"I have had several conversations with corporate clients ... where they have said this new fee is simply unworkable in the U.S., and it's time for us to start looking for other countries where we can have highly skilled talent," said Chris Thomas, an immigration attorney at Colorado-based law firm Holland & Hart. "And these are large companies, some of them household names, Fortune 100 type companies, that are saying, we just simply cannot continue."

About 141,000 new applications for H-1B were approved in 2024, according to Pew Research. Though Congress caps new visas at 65,000 a year, total approvals run higher because petitions from universities and some other categories are excluded from the cap. Computer-related jobs accounted for a majority of the new approvals, the Pew data showed.

Companies were already weighing an expansion in India before the new visa fee disrupted hiring. Reuters reported exclusively on Tuesday that Accenture has proposed a new campus in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, with plans to eventually add about 12,000 jobs in the country, where it has its largest workforce.

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FIRMS WILL CUT H-1B WORKERS

The Trump administration and critics of the H-1B program have said that it has been used to suppress wages and curbing it opens more jobs for U.S. tech workers. The H-1B visa program has also made it more challenging for college graduates trying to find IT jobs, Trump's announcement on Friday said.

The visa previously cost employers only a few thousand dollars. But the new $100,000 fee would flip the equation, making hiring talent in countries like India - where wages are lower and Big Tech now builds innovation hubs instead of back offices - more attractive, experts and executives told Reuters.
"We probably have to reduce the number of H-1B visa workers we can hire," said Sam Liang, co-founder and CEO of popular artificial intelligence meeting agent start-up Otter.ai. "Some companies may have to outsource some of their workforce - hire maybe in India or other countries just to walk around this H-1B problem."

BAD FOR STARTUPS

While conservatives have long applauded Trump's wide-ranging immigration crackdown, the H-1B move has drawn support from some liberal quarters as well.

Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab co-founder and well-known Democratic donor Reed Hastings - who said he has followed H-1B politics for three decades - argued on X that the new fees would remove the need for a lottery and instead reserve visas for "very high value jobs" with greater certainty.

But Deedy Das, a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures that has invested in startups such as AI firm Anthropic, said "blanket rulings like this are rarely good for immigration" and would disproportionately affect startups.
Unlike large technology companies whose compensation packages are a combination of cash and stock, pay packages of startups typically lean toward equity as they need cash to build the business.

"For larger companies, the cost is not material. For smaller companies, those with fewer than 25 employees, it's much more significant," Das said. "Big tech CEOs expected this and will pay. For them, fewer small competitors is even an advantage. It’s the smaller startups that suffer most."

INNOVATION AT RISK

The policy could also mean fewer of the talented immigrants who often go on to launch new firms, analysts said.

More than half of U.S. startups valued at $1 billion or more had at least one immigrant founder, according to a 2022 report from the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan think tank based in Virginia.

Several lawyers said startups they represent are pinning hopes on lawsuits that argue that the administration overstepped by imposing a fee beyond what Congress envisioned, betting that courts would dilute the rule before costs cripple hiring.

If not, "we will see a pullback from the smartest people around the world," said Bilal Zuberi, founder of Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Red Glass Ventures, who began his career in the U.S. on an H-1B visa.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainabil...b-visa-fees-move-spurs-offshoring-2025-09-23/
 
You don't think only America hires foreigners? Lol.
I think America has an exceptional number of foreign engineers who occupy high status positions in the society. Yes, I would say compared to a country like say China or Azerbaijan or Bhutan or hundreds of countries I’m sure in those countries 99% of people are native for and they give the high social status jobs to the natives and the foreigners work the low status jobs I in Dubai how the foreigners are slaves in America we have this goofy policy were like the natives are the slaves and the foreigners have the good jobs. It’s very strange. This is why I like to travel and impregnate foreign women so I have options and can leave when this place goes to shit. I just don’t think American policies are irrational. I think they’re slave policies and we live in a slave country. Every policy our country has I would do the opposite because I am not a modern capitalist person
 
This rule is a joke, they will do it remotely. Indians are the masters at getting around rules.
 
This rule is a joke, they will do it remotely. Indians are the masters at getting around rules.
Yes, they are doing a lot if it remotely, but it does have an impact, an in house H1B will be more effective as they are forced to learn better English. My feeling is that we do have the talent but companies dont want to pay, it undermines our payday as developers and i sure as hell dont have no union backing me, the cards are stacked against me as a developer.

The H1B setup is not what it seems, it’s akin to a staffing agency that has really high markup, and the developers are really working for a fraction of the pay for a long time. I can only speak to the developers I’ve worked with, a few good, mostly bad, and nearly all the American developers I worked with are better and mostly good.
 
No, just less willfully ignorant


Ok, but is that going to be good or bad for the economy and the general population? who the fuck knows.


These companies are absolutely dominating and leading the world in digital services, they know what they are doing.


They do hire American, and you may not even know if American jobs may or may not be lost as a result.

The idea that artificial scarcity leads to better outcomes is just economic mumbo-jumbo, im sure tons of foreign countries are salivating at the idea of creating digital hubs.

And even so at the very least Trump ought to establish some rules not "you got to pay but only if i decide to".

even the playing field
Country isn't business entity.
Companies does have digital hubs worldwide 20 + years in row and they aren't just some bootcamp level Py coders etc. Business is global.

You really might tell that all visas should be 0...
However if corporation might hire somewhere dev for 120 k p.a expenses vs some in U.S for 160 k p.a it alone will take big difference. For business profit. Might be used remotely....and not just bootcamp level.
 
I don’t think it’s going to even cause short term pain for us in the tech industry. These people exist. I think it’s just going to hurt their excessive profit margins at the top
From one point ofc. Cheaper = better for profit and so on. Faster is better...etc.

While from my experience approx 1/3 of ppl with degree weren't able to code normally, not alone to be a Jr.developer.
I don’t talk about scams but confirmed and checked legitimate papers from reputable institutions.
Coder for me is someone who maybe is with potential to be Jr. developer.
He/ she needs some 2 baby sitters providing tasks etc.
Difference between coder and Jr developer I'd that Jr developer does knows not only more than 2 programming languages, also systems architecture basics and unit tests for beginning.
 
Extremely stupid.

To remain competitive against it's rival, the US needs and can benefit from bringing talents all over the world in fields that matter like technology mostly and others important fields.

And to benefit from all the talent over the world who could help your country by their intellect, you would need to set up bridges, not walls.

If for every capable man, a corporation, or himself, must pay 100K dollars which is a lot of money for poor people, especially from the third world, you will end up losing them, because these talents will seek others countries, who will be more reasonable in their fees.

Corporation A, brings 10 workers in the US, it must pays 1 million dollars ? Corporation A will then outsource it's Headquarters to somewhere else, and save a lot of money.

Edit : "By the time the White House clarified that existing holders of the H-1B visas for skilled workers were not affected, the chaos had already been sewn: "

I've read an article, but I had to verify, they were not clear, that lead to a misunderstanding in the media lol.

To be honest, I don't have an opinion on this, but I expected more out of Trump, I do not dislike him at all, but is that all you can do ? I mean, taxes are not an economy, taxing, taxing, taxing, taxing, tarrifs, is that the only way to make money ? It is not. Taxes leeches the blood of the economy rather than being an economy in itself.

Countries must invest in treasury, to protect their incomes and their spending from corruption and mediocre initiatives, you could triple the budget of most countries and they would still remain bankrupt or in the red, lack of money is not the issue especially in abundance but it's spending.
 
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