White House clarifies on existing visa holders after imposing Ksh12M fee
A new Ksh12 million ($100,000) fee for H-1B visas in the United States that goes into effect on Sunday will be levied per petition and will not be applied to existing holders of valid visas re-entering the country, the White House said on Saturday.
“This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X on Saturday.
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Leavitt also said that current H-1B visa holders who are currently outside of the country right now will not be charged Ksh12 million ($100,000) to re-enter the United States.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday said the fee would be paid annually but added that details were “still being considered.”
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Some companies, including Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Amazon, had responded to the Friday announcement by advising employees holding H-1B visas to remain in the United States, according to internal emails reviewed by Reuters.
A Goldman Sachs internal memo seen by Reuters on Saturday urged employees with such visas to exercise caution on international travel.
Leavitt said on X that H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would and that the new fee would only apply in the next H-1B lottery round and not to current visa holders or renewals.
The White House said the fee was being imposed to level the playing field for American workers, who it said are being “replaced with lower-paid foreign labour.”
The executive order imposing the new fee on H-1B visa applications, which was signed by President Donald Trump on Friday night, could disrupt the global operations of Indian technology services companies that deploy skilled professionals to the United States, Indian IT industry body Nasscom said early on Saturday.
In a fact sheet distributed on Saturday, the White House said it would allow an H-1B visa application without the Ksh12 million ($100,000) fee on a case-by-case basis “if in the national interest.”
The fact sheet said that the share of IT workers with H-1B visas has risen from 32 per cent in FY 2003 to over 65 per cent in recent years.
It also requires the Departments of Labour and Homeland Security to issue joint guidance for verification, enforcement, audits, and penalties and directs the Labour Secretary to start a rulemaking to “revise the prevailing wage levels for the H-1B program” and “to prioritise high-skilled, high-paid H-1B workers.”
Friday’s announcement sparked concerns among employees across swaths of corporate America.
On the popular Chinese social media app Rednote, many H-1B holders shared stories of rushing back to the U.S. — some just hours after landing abroad — fearing they would be subject to the new $100,000 fee.
