The Trump administration said on Friday local time that it would require companies to pay $100,000 per year for each H-1B work visa, a move that prompted some large technology companies to urgently remind employees holding such visas to stay in the United States or return quickly. Trump said in the Oval Office of the White House that day: "What we want are top talents, and this measure will filter out the ones who are just fake."
In a separate order, Trump also announced the creation of a "Gold Card" immigration lane. He said the policy would allow for expedited visa approvals by paying high fees: individuals can pay $1 million to get visas quickly, while companies can pay $2 million for their foreign employees to speed up the process.
It is reported that the new regulations will increase the fees companies pay for H-1B applicants to US$100,000 per year to ensure that the foreign workers introduced are "truly highly skilled and irreplaceable." The White House emphasized that this new regulation will encourage companies to prioritize training local talents.
The policy change could deal a heavy blow to the technology industry, which relies heavily on highly skilled talent from India and China. Since taking office in January this year, Trump has launched a wide-ranging crackdown on immigration, including measures to restrict some legal immigration. This reshaping of the H-1B visa program is the administration’s most dramatic move to date in reforming temporary work visas.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick said: "If you are going to train someone, train young Americans who graduate from our colleges and universities. Train Americans, stop bringing in foreigners to take away our jobs."
Lutnick claimed that each visa would be for three years and would require an annual payment of $100,000, but the specific details were "still being discussed."
Trump’s threat to rectify the H-1B visa has become the main focus of conflict between him and the technology industry. Notably, the tech industry contributed large sums of money to his presidential campaign.
As soon as the news came out, giants such as Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and Amazon all issued notices to their employees with visas overnight to stay or return to the United States.
Critics of the H-1B visa program, including large numbers of U.S. tech workers, say the system allows companies to drive down wages and squeeze the local labor market. Supporters believe that the highly skilled talents introduced by this system are crucial to filling the talent gap and maintaining the competitiveness of enterprises. Tesla CEO Musk also publicly supported it. He immigrated to the United States through an H-1B visa and was eventually naturalized.
The executive order signed by Trump that day stated that some employers have indeed used the program to drive down wages, thereby harming the interests of American workers.
The document points out that between 2000 and 2019, the number of foreign science and engineering practitioners in the United States more than doubled to nearly 2.5 million, while local jobs increased by only 44.5% during the same period.
It is expected to weaken U.S. competitiveness
Deedy Das, a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, said on the social platform
This move may cause a sudden increase in corporate costs, especially for small and medium-sized technology companies and start-ups.
Under the current system, employers only need to pay thousands of dollars to win the H-1B lottery for foreign employees and renew them for three years. According to the executive order signed on Friday, each visa holder may be required to pay a "skills premium fee" of US$100,000 per year in the future, totaling US$300,000 in three years.
Some analysts have warned that the new policy may force companies to outsource some high-value work overseas, thereby weakening the United States' leading position in the technology field.
eMarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman said: "In the short term, the U.S. government may be able to gain fiscal revenue; but in the long term, the United States will lose its innovation advantage due to excessive protectionism and exchange economic vitality for short-sighted taxation."
The United States issues 65,000 H-1B visas every year, with another 20,000 quota reserved exclusively for applicants with U.S. graduate degrees. Data shows that India is the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas, with 71% of visas approved last year, followed by China, which ranked second with 11.7%.
In the first half of 2025 alone, Amazon and its cloud computing unit AWS received more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft and Meta each received more than 5,000.
"All the big companies have accepted $100,000 a year, and we've talked to them," Lutnick said.
In addition, the "Gold Card" project announced at the same time also aims to reshape the United States' immigration framework for foreign workers, tending to attract entrepreneurs and high-income groups. Lutnick emphasized that the United States will only accept the top and most outstanding talents.