Existing holders will not be charged the US H-1B visa fee: White House
The White House announced on Saturday that a new $100,000 cost for H-1B visas in the US, which will take effect on Sunday, will be assessed per petition and would not be applied to current holders of legal visas who are reentering the nation.
“This is not a yearly charge. In a post on X on Saturday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt stated, “It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition.”
Leavitt added that there will be no $100,000 fee for current H-1B visa holders who are currently abroad to reenter the country.
Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, stated on Friday that the fee would be paid once a year, but he also mentioned that specifics were “still being considered.”
According to internal emails examined by Reuters, several businesses, including Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Amazon, advised workers on H-1B visas to stay in the United States in response to the news on Friday. Employees holding such visas were advised to travel abroad with caution, according to an internal Goldman Sachs document seen by Reuters on Saturday.
According to Leavitt on X, holders of H-1B visas are free to travel and return to the nation as they normally would, and the increased charge will only be applied during the upcoming H-1B lottery round, not to holders of existing visas or those renewing them.
In order to level the playing field for American workers, who are allegedly being “replaced with lower-paid foreign labor,” the White House stated the fee was being imposed.
Indian IT industry group Nasscom warned early on Saturday that the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Friday night that imposes a new fee on H-1B visa applications may cause disruptions to the international operations of Indian technology services companies that send highly qualified workers to the US.
The White House stated in a fact sheet released on Saturday that, on an individual basis, it would approve an application for an H-1B visa without the $100,000 cost “if in the national interest.”
Also Read: Indian citizens are most affected by the new US visa rules
According to the data sheet, over 65% of IT workers currently hold an H-1B visa, up from 32% in FY 2003.
Additionally, it instructs the labor secretary to begin rulemaking to “revise the prevailing wage levels for the H-1B program” and “to prioritize high-skilled, high-paid H-1B workers.” The Departments of Labor and Homeland Security are also required to release joint guidance for verification, enforcement, audits, and penalties.
Employees in large segments of corporate America expressed alarm after Friday’s statement.
Many H-1B holders posted about their hasty return to the United States, some within hours of their international arrival, on the well-known Chinese social media platform Rednote, out of concern that they would be charged the new $100,000 cost.