Trump extends order seeking $100,000 H-1B visa fee by another year

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 (Reuters) – The White House said on Friday that President Donald Trump has renewed for another year an executive order that would charge a $100,000 fee for H-1B non-immigrant visas.

Employers in the United States that want to hire skilled foreign personnel can turn to the federal H-1B visa program, paying a fee so technology workers and other professionals from overseas may work in the country for several years.

Trump, who has led an aggressive immigration enforcement campaign, has criticized the program and seeks to make the fee permanent, raising it from a range of $2,000 to $5,000 to no less than $100,000. The effort has encountered legal obstacles.

A Boston-based appeals court is examining a June ruling by a federal judge that found the Trump administration’s higher fee unlawful and barred the government from collecting it. A separate court is weighing whether a judge correctly dismissed a challenge to the fee brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying organization.

Trump’s original order for the fee increase, first issued in September 2025, was due to lapse this month. It did not cover visas provided to foreign nationals already in the United States on student visas—a group that accounts for a substantial portion of new H-1B recipients—or renewals of existing visas.

Although critics contend that some companies use the visas to hire lower-paid foreign workers rather than Americans, business groups and employers argue the program helps them recruit highly skilled professionals and fill shortages of qualified U.S. workers in certain industries.

The visas, created by Congress in 1990, are particularly important for technology companies seeking to hire from India and China.

Shifts in how prospective visa holders are vetted and processed have affected companies’ hiring and expansion plans. Some of the largest H-1B users, including Google parent Alphabet, have moved to expand operations in India.