Hiring H-1B visa workers may cost $100K more with Trump’s latest executive order

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that would change the H1-B visa program.

• The order raises the H1-B visa application fee to $100,000.

• Tech companies use the H1-B visa program to hire skilled foreign workers.

It looks like hiring H1-B visa workers is about to get a whole lot more expensive.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that includes changes to the H1-B visa program, which many tech companies use to hire thousands of skilled foreign workers every year.

The order includes imposing an H1-B application fee of $100,000. The executive order said the fee would need to be paid in order for applications to be considered.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who spoke alongside Trump in the Oval Office, said it would be a yearly fee for companies that hire H1-B workers. Officials said the fee would help ensure the visa is used to bring in workers who are actually very highly skilled and not to replace American workers.

“Either the person is very valuable to the company and America, or they’re going to depart and the company is going to hire an American,” Lutnick said, adding the changes would encourage companies to train Americans instead of bringing in foreign workers.

He said the fee would apply to new visas as well as renewals.

According to the executive order, the new fee requirement will take effect on September 21 and expire after one year, pending an extension.

Some of the top tech companies sponsoring H1-B visas include Amazon, Microsoft, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Meta, and Apple. Because companies are required to disclose to the government what they pay H1-B workers, the data has offered insights into Big Tech salaries.

In his executive order, Trump called out four tech companies that approved thousands of H-1B workers and also conducted layoffs. He did not name them, though they are likely Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, and Salesforce. Business Insider has reached out to the White House to confirm this.

Trump wrote about “one software company” that announced layoffs of over 15,000 employees, an “IT firm” that laid off 2,400 employees in Oregon in July, a company that has reduced its workforce by 27,000 employees since 2022, and a fourth company that eliminated 1,000 jobs in February.

As Business Insider has previously reported, Microsoft has said it will shed about 15,000 employees this year, and Amazon has cut at least 27,000 employees since late 2022. Intel, which has previously found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and is also getting a 9.9% stake from the government, has a major presence in Oregon, where it made cuts in July. The fourth company that Trump referred to was likely Salesforce.