The American technology sector rushes to $ 100,000

Last Friday, when US President Donald Trump signed a decree to add costs of $ 100,000 (£ 74,000) for H-1B visa requests, a program for qualified foreign workers, Abhishek Singh immediately feared that he did not have to move.

Mr. Singh, an official of software engineering based in the Seattle region, knew that his employer – an American startup – would not be able to pay the costs in addition to his current salary.

Mr. Singh, who has been working in the United States for ten years – the last seven of them on an H -1B visa – has sighed a slight sigh of relief when the White House clarified on Saturday that for the moment, the costs only apply to future candidates.

But its concerns are an indication of the potentially large consequences of change, because it creates new charges for businesses, in particular startups, with what some say could be significant benefits for innovation and economic growth.

The H-1B program is often associated with giants in the American technological sector. Amazon is at the top of the list of beneficiaries, with more than 10,000 H-1B visas approved in the first half of 2025. Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google each obtained more than 4,000 visas until June.

None of the companies responded to requests for comments.

But while only 30 employers – mainly large technological companies – dominate the program, representing around 40% of the new H -1B visas available, it is not only the giants who are ready to be affected by the Trump decree.

Startups, as well as small businesses beyond technology, also employ workers via H-1B visas. For them, six -digit costs per applicant could paralyze.

“If you are a startup with new technologies and you have money in venture capital but you fear burning it too quickly, it could kill you,” said John Skrentny, professor at the University of California in San Diego who studies the development of STEM workforce.

“What the Trump administration plan does not seem to recognize is that not all companies will spend $ 100,000 on a visa,” he added.

Beyond the technology industry, organizations in sectors such as education and health care, who employ foreign qualified workers as part of the H-1B program, are also faced with the six-digit costs.

“There is no way that we can allow $ 100,000,” said Karen Brady, CEO of Ryther, a non -profit organization of behavioral health based in Seattle. “In terms of future hiring, we will no longer make H-1B visas.”

The behavioral health sector is struggling with a shortage of labor in the middle of a peak in need from the pandemic, said Brady. The hiring of employees as part of the H-1B program has helped to resolve the crisis, she said.

Ryther, based in Seattle, currently employs two therapists on H-1B visas, out of 45 in total, said Ms. Brady, who are both from China. Without these employees, there would be no one in staff with linguistic and cultural knowledge to communicate with families of similar backgrounds.

“They correspond to some of our customers in a way that American workers do not do it,” she said. “I can’t replace this.”

In a research note, Atakan Bakiskan, Economist of the Berenberg Investment Bank, reduced its estimate of American growth by 2% at the start of the year to 1.5%, saying that the costs of $ 100,000 H-1B are part of the development of anti-crust policies of the Trump administration “.

“With the new H-1B policy, the workforce is more likely to shrink than to develop in the future,” he said. “Brain flight weighs strongly on productivity.”

In his decree, Trump justified new costs by referring to the “abuse” of the H-1B program, a nod to a long-standing concern in the political spectrum that companies have used the program to hire foreign personnel to lower wages.

Its administration also works on a wider overhaul of the program, which is generally exceeded by the requests of around 85,000 new visas available each year, including a proposal to prioritize the demands of more remunerated workers.

Trump’s initial announcement won the praise of some, including the co-founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, who broke out of many of his colleagues chief technology, qualifying the costs of “large solution”.

Supporters of the change said that major technological companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, who are the biggest beneficiaries of the program, have money to swallow new costs.

“If they are really specialized people and they bring a lot of value, $ 100,000 should not be a big problem for these employers,” said Ronil Hira, professor of political science at Howard University who focuses on American immigration policy.

But the policies that make more difficult for companies to hire qualified posts also often encourage companies to offshore their operations, rather than hiring American workers at an equivalent level of competence, said Dan Wang, professor at Columbia Business School focused on world migration and entrepreneurship.

“These policies really do not have the planned effect to balance the competitiveness of the American workers’ labor market,” said Professor Wang. “There is no trace of data suggesting that American workers would benefit from it.”

Elise Fialkowski is co -president of the corporate immigration firm at Klasko Immigration Law Partners, who works with startups and large companies.

She said that since last week, some of her biggest corporate clients – many of whom have already had subsidiaries or branches outside the United States – have started to think about the opportunity to hire talent in Canada, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Trump’s decree “almost begs companies to work offshore,” she said.

Despite the stay, Mr. Singh said that he was still planning to leave his startup if he could find a job in his country of origin, or elsewhere – Canada, Japan, South Korea – feared that the administration continues to harden policies against immigrants.

“There is uncertainty now that anything can happen in the future,” said Singh. “If we are forced to go out, then this is the only option with which we have left.”