H-1B Visa Fee Hike: 20 Tech Giants That Could Be Hit Hardest

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump late Friday, hiking H-1B visa application fees to $100,000, sent Silicon Valley into a tailspin.

H-1B visas have become a mainstay of the tech industry, allowing companies to hire highly-skilled workers from abroad, including engineers.

Affected tech workers and corporate lawyers initially scrambled to decipher the new policies, with companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta telling employees on H-1B visas to either stay in the US or return from abroad within 24 hours.

The Trump administration subsequently clarified that the fees would only apply to new applicants, not renewals or current H-1B holders.

The Trump administration said it implemented the changes to prevent system “abuses” and to encourage companies to train American workers.

Some applauded the new policy, including Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, who said it could mean the end of the lottery system, given H-1Bs are capped at 85,000 workers annually. Others worried cash-strapped startups would be most severely affected, or that the executive order could counterintuitively push more jobs out of the country.

Business Insider examined publicly available data from the Department of Labor and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to track which tech companies had the most H-1B visa approvals in 2025.

Bloomberg, Intel, and Nvidia declined to comment. The rest of the companies on this list did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.