The administration of President Donald Trump has developed a plan to impose a $100,000 fee on the H-1B skilled-worker visa programme, after a court blocked its earlier attempt to levy a similar charge, The Japan Times reports.

The proposed $100,000 fee represents the latest move in a running effort by the White House to restrict or reshape the H-1B category, which U.S. employers use to hire foreign nationals in specialty occupations. The plan follows a defeat in court, where judges rejected the administration's previous mechanism for collecting a comparable fee from employers that sponsor H-1B workers.

What is changing

Under the new plan, the administration intends to attach a $100,000 charge to the H-1B visa process. The fee would apply to employers petitioning for H-1B workers, though the exact mechanics of how the charge would be levied — whether per petition, per beneficiary, or per renewal — have not yet been spelled out in a published federal rule.

The figure is a dramatic escalation from the standard fees employers currently pay when filing H-1B petitions. For most of the programme's history, those costs have ranged from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per petition, depending on employer size and whether the filing is subject to the congressionally mandated additional fees for training and fraud prevention.

Why the administration changed course

The new fee plan is a workaround. A court struck down the administration's earlier attempt to collect a similar fee, finding the executive branch had overstepped its authority. Rather than appeal that loss or wait for Congress to act, the White House has devised an alternative route it believes can survive judicial scrutiny.

Immigration analysts note the pattern: when the administration's H-1B restrictions lose in court, it typically returns with a revised mechanism targeting the same policy goal. Whether the new $100,000 fee structure avoids the legal defects identified in the earlier ruling will depend on the final text of the rule and, almost certainly, further litigation.

Who is affected

The H-1B programme covers foreign workers in specialty occupations, a category that in practice includes large numbers of technology-sector employees, engineers, physicians, and researchers. India has historically been the largest source country for H-1B beneficiaries.

A $100,000 fee would fall on U.S. employers that sponsor these workers. Large technology firms, which file thousands of H-1B petitions each year, would face proportionally higher total costs. Smaller employers and staffing firms could find the charge prohibitive for individual hires.

The annual cap on new H-1B visas remains set at 85,000 — 65,000 under the general cap plus 20,000 for beneficiaries with U.S. master's degrees or higher. The proposed fee does not change the cap itself, but a charge of this size could sharply reduce the number of employers willing to file petitions within it.

What happens next

A fee of this magnitude would need a formal legal vehicle. If the administration proceeds through regulation, the public would see a proposed rule in the Federal Register, followed by a comment period before the fee could take effect. If the White House instead attempts an alternative mechanism, such as an agreement with individual employers, the rollout may be faster and less transparent.

Employers and prospective applicants should monitor announcements from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that administers the H-1B programme, for the authoritative text of any new fee requirement. Until a rule is published and takes effect, existing H-1B filing fees and procedures remain in force.

Litigation is likely. The earlier court defeat shows that business groups and immigration advocates are prepared to challenge administration fees on the H-1B programme, and a $100,000 charge would give them fresh grounds to argue that the executive branch is effectively legislating a restriction that Congress never approved.

This article summarizes reporting by The Japan Times on the proposed fee. Readers should rely on official USCIS and Federal Register publications for the binding details of any H-1B fee change, and should consult qualified counsel for questions about specific cases. Passport File does not provide individual legal advice.