US employers could potentially face more than $200,000 in government charges to hire a foreign worker through the H-1B programme if a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal takes effect, and President Donald Trump’s separate $100,000 H-1B payment requirement is reinstated.
The DHS has proposed a $103,265 fee for H-1B petitions subject to the annual visa cap.
The proposal explicitly states the new charge would be separate from any payment required under a presidential proclamation and that employers subject to both would have to pay both.
“To the extent a petitioner is subject both to a proclamation-required payment and to the additional H-1B fee proposed in this rule, the petitioner would be required to pay both amounts,” DHS said.
That would put the two charges at $203,265, before the other fees employers already pay when sponsoring an H-1B worker.
However, this fee is not in effect yet. DHS is accepting public comments before deciding whether to finalise the rule.
The proposed fee would apply to H-1B petitions competing for the annual 85,000-visa allocation—65,000 under the regular quota and 20,000 for workers with qualifying US master's degrees or higher.
It would not apply to cap-exempt H-1B filings, including certain petitions involving universities and qualifying research organisations.
DHS calculated the figure by identifying ~$8.7 billion in costs it says need to be recovered and dividing that amount among an estimated 85,000 fee-paying H-1B petitions.
The proposed revenue would go beyond processing H-1B applications, with DHS proposing allocations across agencies. This includes US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Justice Department's immigration courts, the Department of Labor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the State Department, and Customs and Border Protection.
The possibility of a combined bill depends on the fate of the separate $100,000 payment.
Trump introduced the $100,000 payment last September for certain new H-1B petitions involving workers outside the US. A federal court in Massachusetts later vacated the policy, and the administration appealed.
On July 24, the First Circuit declined to put that ruling on hold, leaving the $100,000 payment unenforceable while the appeal continues.
The new proposal comes alongside other changes to the H-1B system.
For the FY2027 H-1B selection process, DHS has replaced the previous random lottery with a wage-weighted system. The rule, which took effect in February 2026, gives higher-paid positions greater weight in the selection process while retaining eligibility across four wage levels.
The administration is also pursuing a separate change to the wages employers must offer H-1B workers.
In March, the Department of Labor proposed changing the methodology used to calculate prevailing wages for H-1B and several other foreign-worker programmes. The proposal would raise the wage levels used in those calculations, potentially increasing what employers would have to pay for some positions.
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