Trump administration officials have proposed charging more than $100,000 for skilled worker visas, according to a report by The New York Times. The proposal would mark one of the most dramatic changes to the employment-based US immigration system in decades, tying the cost of a skilled work visa to a six-figure sum for the first time.

The plan, still at the proposal stage, would affect employers and foreign nationals who rely on the skilled worker visa system — the primary legal pathway US companies use to hire foreign professionals in specialty occupations. Under current rules, employers pay filing fees that run in the hundreds to low thousands of dollars, plus optional premium processing charges. The proposal now under discussion would push the price of a visa above $100,000, an increase of several orders of magnitude.

Who is affected

If adopted, the change would fall on two groups. First, US employers — particularly technology firms, hospitals, research institutions and engineering companies — that sponsor foreign skilled workers and would bear or pass on the new cost. Second, the foreign professionals themselves, many of whom now see employer sponsorship as the only realistic route to working in the United States.

A fee above $100,000 per visa would effectively reprice skilled migration as a luxury available only to the highest-budget employers or the wealthiest applicants. Companies that sponsor dozens or hundreds of workers each year would face multi-million-dollar annual immigration bills under such a structure, and smaller firms could be priced out of sponsoring altogether.

What changes and what does not

The proposal remains exactly that — a proposal. No rule has been published, no fee schedule has been finalized, and no effective date has been set. Until a formal rulemaking notice appears in the Federal Register, current visa categories, eligibility criteria and filing fees continue to apply unchanged.

US immigration rules of this magnitude typically require a formal notice-and-comment process, meaning stakeholders would have a window to submit objections before any new fee takes effect. Anyone tracking the change should anchor their planning to the official Federal Register notice and US Citizenship and Immigration Services announcements rather than to preliminary reporting.

The policy logic and the context

The reported figure of more than $100,000 suggests officials are reframing skilled work visas from an administrative permit into a high-value commercial product — a fee level closer to an investor visa than a standard employment visa. Proponents of high fees argue they would filter applications toward applicants with the strongest economic value and reduce demand that currently overwhelms annual caps. Critics counter that fees at this level would not filter for talent but for wealth, and would push skilled workers toward competing destinations such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

The proposal fits a broader pattern of executive-branch efforts to restrict and reprice legal immigration channels without new legislation, using fees, quotas and procedural requirements as levers.

What affected parties should watch

Employers and prospective applicants should monitor three checkpoints in the coming weeks: publication of any formal rule in the Federal Register, the opening of any public comment period, and any statements from USCIS or the Department of Homeland Security confirming or withdrawing the proposal. Only a finalized rule with an effective date changes what applicants must pay and when.

This is a developing story. Passport File will update coverage as official documents emerge.