USA H1B Visa Rules | Do H1B Visa Holders Need to Pay $100,000 Every Year? All Questions Answered

In a big relief for Indians who are currently on H-1B visas, the new $100,000 fee will apply only to the next upcoming lottery cycle and not existing holders or renewals, a White House official told NDTV. Companies like Meta, Microsoft and Amazon had asked their H-1B and H-4 visa holder employees to not leave the country for at least 14 days and to those already out of the country, to return by Sunday. Amid a fresh crackdown on immigration, US President Donald Trump made a major overhaul to the H-1B visa programme and signed a proclamation to increase the visa fee. The move is set to affect Indian technology companies and skilled professionals. Trump said that the H-1B visa programme was created to bring "temporary workers into the US to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labour."