The United States has announced fresh changes to the H-1B visa programme, just days after President Donald Trump imposed a steep hike in application fees to $100,000.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed that it plans to abandon the current lottery system in favour of a wage-weighted selection process. “This is aimed at ensuring H-1B visas for higher-skilled and higher-paid aliens, while maintaining the opportunity for employers to secure H-1B workers at all wage levels,” DHS stated.
Under the proposal, the number of lottery entries would vary by salary tier. Workers earning in the highest of the four wage levels — an annual salary of $162,528 — would receive four entries in the selection pool, while those in the lowest tier would get only one.
Nicole Gunara, Principal Immigration Attorney at Manifest Law, said the proposed rule could significantly reshape global talent flows into the US. “In effect, an engineer offered $150,000 at Meta might now have multiple lottery entries, while a junior developer at a startup earning $70,000 might only get one. This tilts the system toward established companies that can pay at the top of the market and away from emerging firms that rely on younger international talent,” she explained.
Gunara further noted, “If this rule goes into effect, the H-1B lottery will no longer be purely random. Instead, each applicant’s odds will be weighted by salary level. A candidate in a top wage tier could receive multiple entries in the lottery, while someone at an entry-level salary may only get one. That means higher-paid, senior roles will have significantly better chances of selection, while recent graduates and earl’-career workers will face much steeper odds.”
Trump Defends Fee Hike, Cites ‘American Workers First’
Last week, President Trump signed a proclamation raising the H-1B visa application fee to $100,000. The visa, which allows US companies to hire skilled foreign workers in fields such as technology and engineering, has traditionally been allocated through a lottery system.
ALSO READ: ‘False Hindu God’: Republican leader sparks row for opposing Texas Hanuman statue
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, “President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this common-sense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down wages. It also gives certainty to American businesses who actually want to bring high-skilled workers to our great country but have been trampled on by abuses of the system.”
While signing the proclamation, Trump remarked, “The incentive is to hire American workers.”
According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Indians account for 71% of all approved H-1B applications. Indian IT majors such as TCS, Infosys, and Wipro are among the largest users of the programme, and the new fee structure could cost these companies billions, potentially reducing hiring or shifting jobs back to India.
White House staff secretary Will Scharf called the H-1B programme one of the “most abused visa” systems in the country.
The policy shifts come as India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal are visiting the US for meetings with Trump administration officials in New York.
