The Trump administration is layering fees, wage floors and stay caps across the H-1B, OPT and green-card routes. Where each measure stands.

Published on: Aug 26, 2026, 10:25:32 IST

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The Trump administration has either planned or set in motion a series of measures on US visas that analysts say are aimed at deterring American employers from hiring foreign workers and making immigration to the country more difficult.

The measures range from steep new fees on H-1B applications and visa extensions to higher minimum wages, and stretch to the student work programme and, potentially, to green-card queues. On Tuesday, the administration issued a pause on visa appointments for applicants around the world as the immigration crackdown in the Republican leader's second term continued.

The narrowing paths to the American dream were already closing in before the latest moves. H-1B registrations fell from about 794,000 in 2023 to roughly 344,000 last year, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data. The share of US firms open to hiring foreign business school graduates dropped from 55% in 2022 to 29% in 2026, according to a Graduate Management Admission Council survey reported by Bloomberg.

On the student side, international applications for the 2026-27 admissions cycle fell 10% year-on-year, the sharpest drop on record, a Common App report said. Applications from India, the single largest source country for American universities, were down 15% over the same timeframe, it said.

The measures are currently in different stages of planning and implementation:

Expected to be implemented

The 9/11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee expansion

From September 9, American employers with 50 or more staff — more than half of whom are on H-1B or L-1 status — will have to pay $4,000 for every H-1B visa extension they file for and $4,500 for every L-1 extension.

The fee has been in place since 2015, but what is new is its scope. Until now, the charge applied only to fresh hires or job switches. Visa extensions were exempt.

This means that what was a one-time charge at the point of hire will soon turn into a running bill. The US government estimates that the change will yield it about $157.3 million a year.

Indian information technology companies are likely to feel this shift almost immediately. Their US businesses run on engineers deputed for multi-year onshore stints, renewed periodically through visa extensions.

The ‘duration of status’ replacement rule

An F-1 visa is the standard US student visa issued to foreign nationals enrolled in academic programmes at American universities. Under the earlier arrangement, an F-1 was valid for the ‘duration of status’ — that is, for as long as the course of study lasted, with no fixed cap.

The new rule replaces that open-ended validity with a fixed period of admission capped at four years. Students enrolled in longer courses, such as certain doctoral or medical programmes, will have to apply to USCIS for an extension of stay to complete their studies. The post-completion grace period, during which a student may remain in the country after finishing the course, has also been cut from 60 days to 30.

The rule is set to come into effect on September 15, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

But it has been classified as a “major rule”, which gives the Congress a window to pass a joint resolution to overturn it, if it so chooses. DHS has said it will issue a further notice if the effective date changes.

Indian nationals form one of the largest cohorts in US doctoral and medical programmes, and will bear the extension-of-stay bureaucracy disproportionately. Combined with the OPT charge under consideration (see below), the tighter four-year window will add an added process and cost to a study-to-work route that Indians have for decades treated as one of the strongest arguments for a US education.

In a limbo

The original $100,000 H-1B entry fee

Issued as a presidential proclamation in September 2025, this measure imposed a $100,000 fee on H-1B workers being hired from outside the US. It invoked the president's authority to restrict the entry of foreign nationals deemed detrimental to US interests, and it did not apply to in-country hires or to cap-exempt employers.

Before it, there was no comparable entry fee. The regular H-1B application fee stood at $780 in the Joe Biden administration's final year.

A federal judge in Boston struck down the proclamation in June this year, ruling that the fee was in effect a tax and that only the US Congress could impose one. The Trump administration has appealed the ruling.

Meanwhile, the proclamation is scheduled to expire this September unless extended.

Indians were expected to be among the worst affected by the rule because they make up for a majority of H1B visa recipients. In fiscal year 2025, Indians accounted for 70% of H-1B workers.

Proposed, awaiting final adoption

The $103,265 cap-subject H-1B fee

This would be a fresh charge on US employers, on top of every other H-1B fee they already pay. Under the proposal, an employer would owe $103,265 for each new H-1B petition filed under the annual cap — the 85,000-visa pool that includes 20,000 slots reserved for candidates who hold a US Master’s degree or higher. DHS has framed the fee as a way to recover the government's costs of running the legal-immigration system. The proposal was published in the Federal Register on August 24. The 30-day comment window closes in late September, so the rule could be finalised by year-end. But analysts say the fee is expected to be challenged in courts as it appears to be just another legal route to levy $100,000 per H-1B application.

Enforcing such a fee would hit Indian H-1B applicants. For instance, an employer would have to pay roughly $10.3 million only to file applications for sponsoring just 100 H-1B workers.

The wage rule

The US Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed raising the minimum salaries that US employers must pay foreign workers on H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 and PERM visas. These are known as ‘prevailing wages’ — government-set salary floors.

Under the current system, employers must pay a foreign worker at one of four wage levels, tied to the seniority of the job, from entry-level to expert. Each level is pegged to a point on the pay scale of US workers in comparable jobs.

The DOL proposal shifts each of the four levels sharply upward, meaning most H-1B and PERM roles would need to be paid substantially more than they are today. The steepest jump falls at the entry-level tier, where the minimum salary would rise by about 30%. The higher tiers would also rise, though the exact dollar impact varies by occupation and location.

The notice of the proposed rule was published in the Federal Register this March, and the public comment period closed in May. DOL is reviewing the submissions. The rule is not yet final.

Indian workers in the US are concentrated at levels I and II — early- and mid-career specialty roles, where the proposed minimum-wage increases are the steepest. An analyst estimates that the change could cost the largest H-1B employers as much as $18 billion in the first year of implementation, according to Bloomberg.

Under consideration

$100,000 fee on OPT

F-1 students would have to pay $100,000 to use Optional Practical Training (OPT), the programme that lets foreign graduates work in the US for one to three years after completing their studies, in fields related to their degree. OPT has no comparable upfront fee at present. It is the standard bridge from an American degree to an H-1B or other US work visa.

Indian students are the largest single national cohort using OPT, with more than 363,000 enrolled in US institutions in the 2024-25 academic year, according to US government data. A $100,000 fee is expected to close this post-graduation work window for a vast majority of them and, in effect, unravel the economic case for a US degree.

DHS has acknowledged this rule is being considered, though the proposal has not yet been published in the Federal Register.

$100,000 refundable green-card bond

Applicants for certain immigrant visas — the consular route to a green card, applied from outside the US — would have to post a refundable bond of up to $100,000. The bond would be returned when the applicant naturalises as a US citizen, typically at least five years after receiving the green card.

No such bond exists on immigrant visas today. The State Department currently runs a small B-1/B-2 visitor-visa bond pilot with bonds of $5,000 to $15,000.

The State Department is evaluating this proposal; it is not yet in the Federal Register and is expected to be piloted in a small number of countries first.

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