Nasscom Raises Alarm Over Proposed $103,265 H-1B Fee, Warns Of Impact On Skilled Talent Access In US
New Delhi: IT industry’s apex body Nasscom said on Tuesday that a proposed increase in visa fees in the US must be viewed in the context of the programme’s original purpose of enabling access to temporary skills, where there is a shortage in the US. Nasscom said it remains actively engaged with all key stakeholders on this matter. The new $103,265 H-1B executive rule is a proposed US Department…
Nasscom, the IT industry's leading organization in India, has expressed concerns over a proposed $103,265 increase in H-1B visa fees in the United States. The proposed regulation, announced by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), aims to recover immigration system costs and encourage employers to hire and train American workers. However, Nasscom argues that this fee would significantly impact access to skilled talent in the US.
According to Nasscom, the H-1B visa program has consistently addressed short-term skill gaps in the US market. Over the past five years, the number of H-1B employees from Indian technology companies has decreased as companies have expanded local hiring. The industry has also invested over $1.1 billion in strengthening the STEM pipeline in the US, working with more than 130 universities and colleges, impacting 2.9 million students, and upskilling over 255,000 employees.
If implemented, the proposed fee would apply to every cap-subject petition, including those for workers eligible under the advanced degree exemption. Employers would pay the fee when filing the petition and in addition to all other applicable fees. The DHS estimates that the fee would generate around $8.8 billion annually, based on a projected 85,000 cap-subject petitions per year.
These funds would be used to cover the federal government's costs associated with the legal immigration system, such as immigration benefit adjudications, fraud detection, national security screening, system modernization, and record collection.
The proposed fee would result in a significant increase in the cost of recruiting skilled foreign workers, including professionals from India. With the annual H-1B allocation limited to 65,000 visas, and an additional 20,000 places available to foreign nationals with a master's degree or higher from a US institution, any increase in fees could have a substantial impact on the US tech industry and its reliance on foreign talent.
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