US tech sector scrambles in the face of $100,000 fees

When US President Donald Trump The executive was signed last Friday To add $ 100,000 fees (74,000 pounds) to submit H-1B visas requests, a program for skilled foreign workers, Abhishek Singh was concerned immediately that he would have to move.

Mr. Singh, a software engineering director in the Seattle region, has known that the employer – an emerging company in the United States – would not be in a position to pay fees on his current salary.

Mr. Singh, who has been working in the United States for ten years – the last seven of them on the H -1B visa – breathe slightly when the White House explained on Saturday that at the present time, fees only apply to future applicants.

But his concerns are an indication of the consequences that are likely to be long -term for change, as they create new burdens for companies, especially startups, with what some say can be great repercussions for innovation and economic growth.

H-1B is often associated with the American technology sector. Amazon tops the list of beneficiaries, where more than 10,000 H-1B visas were approved in the first half of 2025. Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google secured more than 4000 visas through the program until June.

None of the companies responded to the suspension requests.

But while only 30 employers – mainly the major technology companies – dominate the program, which represents 40 % of the new H-1B visas are estimatedNot only is the giant affected by being affected by Trump’s executive order.

Startups, as well as smaller companies that go beyond technology, use workers through H-1B visas. For them, it can paralyze fees consisting of six numbers for each request provider.

“If you are emerging with new technology, you get some investment capital money, but you are concerned about combustion very quickly, it may kill you,” said San Diego, who is studying the development of the workforce in the field of development that applies to the development of the workforce in the field of development that saved.

“What does not seem that the Trump administration plan does not acknowledge that no company can spend $ 100,000 on the visa,” he added.

In addition to the technology industry, institutions are wrestling in industries such as education and health care, both of which employ foreign skilled workers through the H-1B program, with what the six numbers fees may mean.

“There is no way in which we can carry $ 100,000,” said Karen Brady, CEO of Rethar, a non -profit institution in Seattle based in Seattle. “In terms of employment in the future, we will not do any other H-1B visas.”

Ms. Brady said that the behavioral health sector is fighting with a shortage of workforce amid a needy rise since the epidemic. She said that employee employment through the H-1B program helped to address the crisis.

Ms. Brady said that Rethar, based in Seattle, is currently employing two of the healers on H-1B visas, out of 45 total. Without these employees, there will be no one for employees who have linguistic and cultural knowledge to communicate with families from similar backgrounds.

“They are identical to some of our customers in a way that American workers do not do,” she said. “I can’t replace it.”

In a research note, Atakan Bakiskan, the economist at the Borenberg Investment Bank, reduced his appreciation for US growth from 2 % at the beginning of the year to 1.5 %, he said

“With the new H-1B policy, the workforce is likely to shrink from expanding to move forward,” he said. “Brain migration will significantly weigh on productivity.”

In his executive order, Trump justified the new fees by referring to the “H-1B” program, a sign of the old long anxiety through the political spectrum that companies used the program to employ foreign employees at low wages.

Its administration is also wider repair of the program, which usually overwhelms the new 85,000 visas requests available every year, including a proposal to determine the priorities of requests for paid workers.

Trump’s initial advertisement got praise from some, including Red Hastings, co -founder of Netflix, who separated from many of his fellow technology leaders, describing the drawings as a “great solution”.

Change supporters said that major technology companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, which is the largest beneficiaries of the program, have funds to swallow new fees.

“If these are truly specialized people, and they get a great value, it should not be $ 100,000 a big problem for employers,” said Ronil Hera, a professor of political science at the University of Howard, who focuses on the American immigration policy.

Dan Wang, a professor at Columbia College of Business, who focuses on global immigration and entrepreneurship, said policies that make it difficult for companies to employ skilled jobs, often pushing companies abroad, instead of employing American workers at the level of equivalent skills.

Professor Wang said: “These policies are in fact not the intended effect of the balance between the competitiveness in the labor market for American workers,” said Professor Wang. “There is no trace of data indicating that American workers will benefit from this.”

ELISE FIALKOWSKI is the co -head of immigration in companies at Klasko Highigration Law Partners, which works with both startups and large companies.

She said since last week, some of its largest customers – who already have subsidiaries or sub -offices outside the United States began to think if they will rented talents in Canada, the United Kingdom and other places instead.

She said Trump’s executive “almost asks to work abroad.”

Despite this decline, Mr. Singh said he was still considering leaving the starting start if he could find a job in his country in India, or anywhere else – Canada, Japan, South Korea – that the administration will continue to harden policies against immigrants.

“There is uncertainty now after anything happens in the future,” Singh said. “If we are forced to go out, this is the only option that we left with.”