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On August 25, 2026, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a proposed rule that would impose a $103,265 fee on all cap-subject H-1B petitions. Critically, unlike the prior $100,000 H-1B fee that was based on the president’s authority to restrict entry to the United States and therefore generally applied only to workers hired from abroad, the new proposed fee would also apply to change of status petitions filed on behalf of individuals already in the country (including F-1 students already working for employers, using either optional or curricular practical training). If implemented, the repercussions of this new fee would be extremely challenging for U.S. employers and universities (which would experience a steep drop in the enrollment of foreign students).
The proposed fee would apply to all cap-subject H-1B petitions (i.e., those subject to the annual numerical limit of 85,000, including the 20,000 set aside for beneficiaries with U.S. advanced degrees). Cap-exempt petitions, including H-1B extensions and petitions filed by cap-exempt organizations (consisting of universities and certain nonprofit organizations), would not be affected. The fee would be due at the time of filing and would be payable in addition to all existing H-1B petition fees.
Unlike traditional USCIS fee regulations, which have been structured to recover only USCIS’s own costs, USCIS stated that the purpose of the new fee is to fund the administration of the lawful immigration system across multiple federal agencies (e.g., Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Labor, etc.). The proposed rule will not take effect until USCIS reviews public comments and publishes a final rule with a specific effective date. Comments must be submitted within 30 days of publication in the Federal Register. This means that the new rule, if enacted, would not impact those who have already been selected in the H-1B lottery for the upcoming fiscal year starting October 1, 2026, and would only impact those selected in next year’s H-1B lottery and beyond. We anticipate that there will be legal challenges and will issue further updates as they become available.
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