The Trump administration proposes $103,000 fee for H1-B visas that DHS itself estimates would paralyze 76% of small businesses

Mere months after a federal judge knocked down a six-figure price tag on H1-B visas, the Trump administration is taking another stab at it, proposing a $103,265 surcharge for companies looking to hire foreign workers.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed charging employers the extra amount on top of existing filing costs.

In their proposal, the department even estimated that the six-figure upcharge would force 11,051 small businesses (76% of the small entities it analyzed) to experience a “significant economic impact” as a result of the fee.

The proposal will need to go through a 30-day public comment period, but if enacted, the fee would dramatically change the economics of a visa program that is widely used by tech companies, consulting firms and startups.

It also runs the risk of potentially giving the largest companies another advantage over smaller competitors.

While DHS argues the fee is meant to encourage companies to hire more Americans over foreign workers, research on H1-B visa restrictions indicates the opposite, according to Britta Glennon, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School whose research focuses on immigration and the economy.

“When multinational companies can’t access H-1B visas, they actually become much more likely to open a foreign affiliate abroad or expand hiring of their foreign affiliates,” Glennon told Fortune .

“In other words, they offshore jobs.” Big companies have options–startups don’t Glennon told Fortune large companies like Amazon and Microsoft can opt to hire workers in countries like Canada, India or China if bringing them to the U.S. becomes difficult.

The companies can even build offices in Vancouver or Toronto partly as an alternative pipeline for foreign talent.

But startups face a different problem.

Glennon pointed to research finding that startups that lose out on sought-after H-1B workers are less likely to patent and less likely to reach a successful acquisition or IPO, while their multinational counterparts “have ways of getting around this.” “Small companies have fewer options, and so basically what we see for them is that it just hits their profitability and their success because, especially for startups, talent is such a huge part of whether they are able to succeed,” Glennon explained.

Second and different attempt to charge six figures for foreign talent The Trump administration tried to instate a similar fee last year.

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation in September 2025 requiring a $100,000 payment for certain H-1B workers, but it was vacated by U.S.

District Judge Leo Sorokin in June.