President Donald Trump extended the $100,000 H-1B visa fee proclamation through Sept. 21, 2027, keeping the policy on the books even though a federal court struck it down in June and the government is not collecting it.
This application fee was originally signed Sept. 19, 2025, and took effect Sept. 21, 2025, targeting certain new H-1B specialty occupation workers hired from outside the United States.
It does not apply to F-1 students changing status inside the U.S., to extensions or renewals for current H-1B holders, or to change-of-employer petitions for beneficiaries already in the country.
The fee has been unenforceable since late July. U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin vacated the policy June 8, ruling it functioned as a tax the executive branch had no authority to impose without Congress. The district court briefly stayed its own order, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend that stay July 24, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not assessed the payment since.
Why extend a fee no one is paying?
Immigration practitioners have read the extension as an effort to sustain the administration’s legal effort to reinstate the fee.
The original proclamation carried a one-year term and would otherwise have lapsed September 21, 2026. Extending it keeps the framework in place, so the fee could take effect quickly if an appeals court rules for the administration. The extension also signals that the administration intends to keep pressing the policy, which employers may weigh in their hiring plans.
Why the fee remains blocked
The fee is a one-time payment in addition to standard filing fees.
Challenges followed from business groups, public-interest organizations, and state governments. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a separate suit, now before the D.C. Circuit.
Twenty state attorneys general brought the case that produced the vacatur, State of California v. Mullin, in federal district court in Massachusetts. Because the court vacated the policy under the Administrative Procedure Act rather than issuing an injunction, the ruling reaches nationwide.
For now, employers can file H-1B petitions under the standard fee schedule while the appeal proceeds.
If the fee is reinstated, employers would have to pay the full $100,000 through pay.gov before filing the petition. USCIS guidance says it will deny a petition submitted without proof of payment or an approved exception.
In the extension proclamation, the White House said the 2025 restrictions “have proven to be highly effective, but the underlying conditions necessitating the restrictions persist.”
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