Since the Trump Administration announced the $100K fee for applicants of the skilled foreign worker H-1B visa in mid-September, the proclamation has stirred much confusion and panic among businesses and visa holders in the NC Triangle.
Raleigh-based immigration attorney Omar Bashi said when the announcement dropped on Sept. 19, he heard from two employers who "started freaking out."
"(They) had some workers overseas and we couldn't properly advise them because the government didn't really give us direction at first," Bashi said. "It was like, everybody has to come back. If you don't come back by this date and time, you have to pay a $100,000 fee."
The White House has clarified since then that the new cost of the H-1B visa, which became effective on Sept. 21, is a one-time fee, and it would only apply to new petitions. It would not apply to those who already have H-1B visas in the U.S. "H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent they normally would," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a X post on Sept. 20.
However, many questions remain about what the impact will be to businesses, as well as schools, hospitals and other organizations that employ H-1B workers. Prior to the recent proclamation, an employer paid anywhere between $2,000 to $3,500 for a H-1B visa, depending on the size of the company and other factors, Bashi said. The new fee is a 30- to 50-fold increase.
And there are questions about how it will apply to foreign nationals in the U.S. who are looking to change status, particularly international students who want to enter the H-1B lottery. Immigration lawyers also noted it's not clear who would be considered an exception to this rule.
"The proclamation has a provision that says employers can ask for an exception if having this person be in the U.S. is in the national interest," said Nicola Prall, an immigration attorney in Raleigh. "We don't have guidance yet on what would be in the national interest to qualify for an exception."
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), North Carolina companies received nearly 7,000 H-1B approvals in this current fiscal year. However, this figure may not reflect how many residents in the state have a H-1B visa, since a global company may use its North Carolina address for H-1B petitions but the employees could be based across the country.
IBM received the largest number of H-1B approvals in North Carolina during fiscal year 2025 — 1,590 — followed by Bank of America, Lowes, Truist and Duke University. In an email, an IBM spokesperson clarified that "Only a single-digit percentage of all IBM visa holders in the U.S. are located in North Carolina."
When asked to provide the actual number of H-1B employees based in North Carolina and to comment on whether the new fee would change how the company uses the visa program, IBM did not respond by deadline.
Small companies will feel more of the impact
The H-1B program was established in 1990 to help address the shortage of skilled workers, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Some labor advocates have long voiced concerns that companies, especially large tech firms, are exploiting the program to hire low-cost foreign labor. Supporters, meanwhile, say the program is crucial for moving technological innovation forward and helping American businesses compete on a global scale.
In the proclamation declaring the $100K fee, the Trump Administration has argued that the measure is necessary to protect the American workforce and national security. It further claimed that the increasing number of foreign STEM workers in the U.S. is an indication that companies are replacing American workers with H-1B workers.
The H-1B visa is typically granted for three years and can be extended once for a maximum of six years on the visa. After that point, the worker must spend a year outside of the country before applying again, unless they have a I-140, a petition that says the worker is eligible for a green card – with that petition, the H-1B visa is able to be extended beyond the six-year limit.
This increased cost of hiring a H-1B worker will hurt small companies much more than large companies, said immigration attorney Omar Bashi.
"A lot of small companies use the H-1B system and those companies are not going to be able to afford to pay $100,000 for applicants," he said. "So those companies are going to most likely look for lower quality labor that's less qualified to fill those positions."
"The misconception that everyone talks about is that this is taking jobs from Americans – well, that's not true," he added. "The H-1B system requires these companies to do a certain type of recruiting to find sufficient workers, but if there aren't workers in that recruiting period, they can pursue finding a H-1B worker."
WUNC reached out to the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, which declined to comment on the proclamation. The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce responded in an email saying that the group is also uncertain what the impacts would be to the Triangle.
The fee could deter firms from hiring international students
The new policy could also impact workers who are on F-1 international student visas and want to change status to H-1B. F-1 visa holders are able to extend their stay in the U.S. past graduation by doing their OPT, or Optional Practical Training, which is a work authorization benefit under the visa. It allows them to stay in the U.S. for another year after graduation and it can be extended for two additional years if they are doing STEM-related work. While doing their OPT at a company in the U.S., F-1 visa holders will often enter the H-1B lottery to keep working in the country.
The $100K fee will most likely apply to F-1 visa holders who plan to enter the H-1B lottery in March 2026, said attorney Nicola Prall.
"The communication we've received so far is that the new visa petitions for the 2026 lottery will be subject to the new fee," she said.
However, additional clarity is still needed, Prall added. She explained there's the possibility that a F-1 visa holder could change status to H-1B while in the U.S., but it's not clear when in the process the employer would pay the $100K fee for their employee. Since the H-1B visa is a travel document that's obtained to enter the U.S., Prall said there is a question about whether the fee would only need to be paid if the worker leaves the country and attempts to reenter with a H-1B visa.
Visa holders are bracing for what's next
Attorney Omar Bashi says the cost of the H-1B visa may not stop at $100K before the lottery in March.
" What we've also heard is that this $100K fee is not the final fee," he said. "This could change. The government could charge more if they want to."
About 70% of H-1B visa recipients are from India, and in the Triangle, there is a large Indian diaspora community, many of whom have these visas. People from India also make up the second largest group of foreign-born residents in North Carolina, after those originally from Mexico, according to demographers at UNC-Chapel Hill.
While the White House has clarified that current H-1B visa holders can travel in and out of the U.S., Shruti Parikh, head of education and political engagement of NC Asian Americans Together, says that she's heard from many who are afraid to leave the country.
"They have families back home, right? They have aging parents, they have other relatives back home that count on them to come every year to visit, to help take care of them," Parikh said. "And many of these H-1B visa holders are now putting off those trips for fear that they won't be able to come back into the country for fear that something might go awry."
Parikh, who's lived in North Carolina since the early 1990s, says she's witnessed a major growth in the local Indian population, in part due to folks arriving via the H-1B visa.
"We went from a community where everybody knew everybody in the Indian community, to now I go to the temple and I don't know people," she said. "All these different communities have brought so much to the Triangle in terms of different cultures from India. And so that richness and culture has really been wonderful."
Parikh added that this latest development with the H-1B program is just part of a culture of fear that the Trump Administration has perpetuated towards immigrant communities. And she said it will deter talented foreign workers from wanting to come to the U.S., which she said could create a "brain drain."
"Our innovation will take a hit, our universities, our research facilities, corporations here in North Carolina (that are) centered around Research Triangle Park," she said. "If we're not bringing the best and brightest to work (here), eventually there will be a lack of people that can do that work. We're not filling that need from American universities, unfortunately."
