Washington, October 18: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed a lawsuit against the Donald Trump administration challenging a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, arguing that the move violates federal immigration laws governing the high-skilled worker program.
The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, contends that the new fee overrides provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which require visa fees to reflect only the government’s administrative processing costs.
“The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for U.S. employers, especially startups and small and midsize businesses, to utilise the H-1B program,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice-president and chief policy officer at the Chamber. “The program was created by Congress to help American businesses access global talent and grow operations here in the U.S.”
The Trump administration introduced the steep one-time fee earlier this year, saying it was designed to curb what it described as a trend of American firms replacing domestic workers with cheaper foreign labour.
The H-1B visa program allows U.S. companies to employ highly skilled foreign workers in specialised fields such as technology, engineering and medicine.
Advocacy group FWD.us, co-founded by Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, estimates there were about 730,000 H-1B visa-holders in the United States as of January 2025, with roughly 70% being Indian nationals.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Amazon had 10,044 H-1B visa approvals as of June 2025, followed by Tata Consultancy Services with 5,505, Infosys with 2,004, Wipro with 1,523, and Tech Mahindra Americas with 951.
The new fee, which will remain in effect for one year, can be extended by the government. The Chamber’s lawsuit seeks to block its enforcement, calling it an unlawful barrier to accessing foreign talent critical to the U.S. economy.
