New $100,000 Supplemental Fee for Overseas H-1B Petitions Takes Effect
A new $100,000 supplemental registration fee for H-1B petitions filed on behalf of workers located overseas took effect, dramatically increasing the cost of hiring foreign workers who are not already in the United States.
Why Does This Company Sponsor Visas?
The fee is designed to discourage companies from using H-1B to hire workers directly from overseas rather than transitioning existing U.S.-based workers
USCIS aims to prioritize H-1B usage for workers already contributing to the U.S. economy on student or other visa types
$100,000 per petition makes it economically unviable for most companies to sponsor entry-level overseas hires
The rule targets the practice of large IT consulting firms bringing workers from India and other countries for lower-wage positions
Revenue from the fee is earmarked for STEM education and workforce development programs
Impact Analysis
The $100,000 supplemental fee represents the most dramatic cost increase in H-1B program history and effectively creates a two-tier system: affordable for domestic status changes, prohibitively expensive for overseas hires. Companies with large overseas hiring pipelines (particularly India-based IT services firms like Infosys, TCS, and Wipro) face massive cost increases. The rule is expected to shift H-1B sponsorship heavily toward U.S. university graduates already in the country on F-1/OPT visas.