TechNet, an industry association representing major US technology companies, has urged the Trump administration to withdraw a proposed $103,265 fee on certain new H-1B visa petitions, saying the measure could make it harder for US companies to recruit highly skilled workers, Wall Street Journal reported. The group submitted comments to the Department of Homeland Security opposing the proposed fee. TechNet was joined in its comments by the Information Technology Industry Council and the Semiconductor Industry Association.The proposed fee comes as the administration is tightening the US high-skilled immigration system and encouraging employers to give greater priority to American workers. The proposal has drawn concern from technology companies that rely heavily on foreign-born workers, particularly for specialised positions in fields such as artificial intelligence, engineering and other STEM disciplines.TechNet said the proposed fee could undermine US competitiveness by making it more difficult for American companies to access specialised talent from around the world.“This proposal undermines the US global competitiveness championed by the President, preventing American companies from accessing the world’s top talent — talent that is central to driving innovation, launching businesses, and fostering prosperity in American communities,” the group said in its filing.TechNet’s opposition comes as the technology industry and the Trump administration remain divided over high-skilled immigration. The industry group has previously called for expanding access to foreign talent while also supporting reforms aimed at preventing fraud and misuse of the H-1B programme. Its 2026 policy proposals specifically call for avoiding high H-1B fees that could discourage startups and small businesses from hiring foreign workers.
New H-1B fee proposal
The Trump administration has proposed a new $103,265 fee for H-1B cap-subject petitions, saying the charge would help the US government recover the costs of administering the country’s legal immigration system.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in its proposed rule, said the fee would apply to all H-1B petitions subject to the annual cap, including petitions eligible for the 20,000 advanced-degree exemption. The charge would be paid by the employer when the petition is filed and would come on top of other applicable H-1B fees.DHS said the proposal is intended to generate dedicated revenue to support immigration-related work carried out across several federal agencies, including US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Labor, the Department of State and the Justice Department.The agency cited expenses including immigration adjudications, fraud detection, national-security vetting, information-technology modernization, records management, consular processing, immigration court proceedings and labor-related enforcement.DHS said it considered spreading the additional costs across a broader range of immigration applicants and petitioners but decided that doing so would impose additional costs on individuals whose applications may be less directly connected to employment-based immigration and who may have fewer resources to absorb higher fees.Instead, the agency proposed recovering the costs through H-1B cap-subject petitions, saying employers seeking to hire foreign skilled workers were a more appropriate group from which to recover the costs.The $103,265 figure was calculated by dividing an estimated $8.777 billion in costs by a projected 85,000 fee-paying H-1B petitions, producing a figure of about $103,264.57, which DHS rounded to $103,265.
