The Trump administration is including $100,000 to the prevailing payment for H-1B visa purposes, taking intention at a program that’s used to draw extremely expert employees to the U.S. 

President Trump signed a proclamation late Friday including the brand new visa software payment and barring H-1B employees from coming into the U.S. until that they had made the $100,000 fee. 

“We’re going to have the ability to preserve individuals in our nation which are going to be very productive individuals, and in lots of instances these firms are going to pay some huge cash for that, they usually’re very glad about it,” Mr. Trump stated.

White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson clarified to CBS Information in an e-mail Saturday that the payment “doesn’t apply to anybody who has a present visa,” and “solely applies to future candidates within the February [2026] lottery who’re at the moment outdoors the U.S. It doesn’t apply to anybody who participated within the 2025 lottery.”

“The Proclamation doesn’t affect the power of any present visa holder to journey to/from the U.S.,” Jackson stated.

A White Home official advised CBS Information Saturday that the $100,000 is a one-time payment that solely applies to new visas and isn’t an annual fee. It doesn’t apply to renewals or present visa holders, the official stated.

This comes after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had advised reporters Friday that the payment was “annual.” 

“President Trump promised to place American employees first, and this commonsense motion does simply that by discouraging firms from spamming the system and driving down wages,” White Home spokesperson Taylor Rogers advised CBS Information in an announcement Saturday. “It additionally provides certainty to American companies who really need to convey high-skilled employees to our nice nation however have been trampled on by abuses of the system.”

The extra cost would affect employers together with expertise giants reminiscent of Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Google, which have relied on this system to rent international employees. 

The plan was reported earlier by Bloomberg Information.

H-1B visas are already costly, with the associated fee starting from about $1,700 to $4,500, relying on whether or not the visa is expedited. The charges are sometimes thought of a enterprise expense for the employer. 

The brand new payment comes amid a debate over the H-1B visa, which some critics say allows firms to rent international candidates at decrease salaries than American employees. Some employers additionally award H-1Bs for entry-level roles moderately than for senior positions with better ability necessities, detractors of this system say.

Tech firms have been among the many main beneficiaries of the visa program. Amazon acquired the most H1-B visas of any enterprise in 2024, Division of Labor knowledge exhibits. This 12 months, the net retailer stays the main recipient of the visas, with greater than 10,000 awarded, adopted by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google.

“This may be certain that the individuals they’re bringing in are literally very extremely expert and that they are not replaceable by American employees. So it will defend American employees, however be certain that firms have a pathway to rent actually extraordinary individuals and produce them to the US,” a White Home aide stated.

Nonetheless, Stuart Anderson, government director of the Nationwide Basis for American Coverage, a nonpartisan analysis group, stated the plan might backfire if it incentivizes U.S. firms to shift jobs abroad, particularly in specialised areas like analysis and growth.

“The second affect will additional lower the variety of worldwide college students who’ve an curiosity in coming to review within the U.S. If there isn’t any alternative work within the U.S., it is a lot much less probably they’re going to enroll in U.S. packages,” Anderson advised CBS Information.

Final 12 months, the preferred kind of job for H-1B visas was software program developer. To obtain an H-1B visa, which is awarded by lottery, an applicant must have at the very least a bachelor’s diploma of their area and have been supplied a brief job by a U.S. firm.

President Trump plans to order the Labor Secretary to start out a brand new rule-making course of that may replace wage ranges for this system, Bloomberg reported. At the moment, U.S. firms should supply the prevailing wage or the precise wage of equally certified employees, whichever is increased, in response to the U.S. Division of Labor.

This system is capped at 65,000 new visas annually, though an extra 20,000 may be issued for workers with a grasp’s diploma or increased, in response to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers. The cap and higher-degree exemption quota is already stuffed for fiscal 12 months 2026, in response to the USCIS. 

The H-1B program is already essentially the most restrictive visa program within the U.S., with about 20% of purposes leading to permitted employees, in response to a March examine from the nonpartisan Nationwide Basis for American Coverage. 

— With reporting by Aaron Navarro.

Grace Kazarian,

Jennifer Jacobs and

The Related Press

contributed to this report.