H-1B visa crisis: The $1,00,000 visa fee exceeds 60% of Indian workers’ annual salary in the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation raising the H-1B visa fee to $100,000. The fee currently ranges from $2,000 to $5,000 per application. Initially, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had said the $100,000 charge would apply annually for each of the three years of the visa’s duration, noting that the details were “still being considered.” However, the administration later clarified that the fee would be a one-time payment.

The H-1B visa is a U.S. work visa that allows companies to employ foreign professionals in specialised fields like technology, engineering, and medicine. Indians account for the largest share of H-1B visa holders, making up 71% of all beneficiaries in FY2024.

More importantly, a $100,000 surcharge would, in a majority of cases match or even exceed the yearly salaries earned by Indian H-1B workers. Since Indian professionals typically report lower median wages than their peers from other countries, they are likely to be hit the hardest, both in absolute numbers and as a share of total workers.

To examine this trend, Bloomberg’s open dataset on H-1B applications from 2024 was analysed. The salary figures are drawn from details submitted by employers before the beneficiary begins work under a H-1B approval. They reflect the proposed or offered pay as stated in the employment agreement, not the wages that have already been paid. However, since only approved petitions are included, employers are legally required to pay at least the stated amount, making the data suitable for analysis. 

The chart below presents the “proposed” median annual compensation of H-1B beneficiaries by country of nationality. The dataset is filtered to include only successful, full-time employment petitions that are formally approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

As the chart shows, Indian H-1B workers earned a median annual salary of $95,500 in 2024, among the lowest out of all nationalities. Their pay was slightly higher than that of Pakistani and Nepali beneficiaries. Out of 25 countries with reliable data, India ranked fifth from the bottom in this measure. By comparison, the median annual salary for non-Indian H-1B workers was significantly higher at $120,000. 

Indians make up the overwhelming majority of all H-1B beneficiaries. Given their dominance in numbers, it is equally important to examine how Indian workers are distributed across different income levels. The chart below shows this breakdown, categorising the “proposed” median annual salaries from approved full-time petitions into wage brackets and presenting the share of beneficiaries within each bracket. For comparison, the same distribution is also shown for non-Indian workers.

Nearly 60% of Indian H-1B workers earned an annual salary of $100,000 or less in FY2024. Within this group, about 12% earned below $75,000, while 47% fell in the $75,000–$100,000 range. The remaining 40% of Indians earned above $100,000. In contrast, more than 60% of non-Indian H-1B workers reported salaries above $100,000 that year.

Why does this mean that Indians will be disproportionately affected? 

For many Indians, the proposed surcharge would outstrip their actual pay. For instance, if an H-1B employee earns $80,000 a year—a common salary for mid-level Indian tech jobs—the new $100,000 fee would amount to 125% of their annual income. Even at a $100,000 salary, the surcharge would equal the entire annual wage. Since a majority of Indian H-1B holders earn below this threshold, the added cost would consume most or all of their yearly pay, making it economically unviable for employers to sponsor them.

The story has been updated to reflect the latest clarifications given by the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Saturday afternoon.