The $100k H-1B Fee Split Tech in Two — And Small Businesses Got Crushed

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By: Elena Rostova

Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee was sold as a win for American workers. It only widened the gap between rich tech players and everyone else. Top AI leaders backed the fee when it was first announced. The policy’s real impact falls heaviest on small businesses that can’t pay. The split it created in the tech industry shows exactly who this policy serves.

Eight months after the fee launched, applications from top AI firms soared. Nvidia’s certified H-1B applications rose 19% year over year in Q1 this year. OpenAI’s applications more than tripled. Anthropic grew from roughly 10 applications to nearly 60. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang even admitted he couldn’t have afforded the fee as an immigrant. He said his own chance to come to the US would not exist today. Meanwhile, large legacy Big Tech firms pulled back sharply. Amazon, Google and Microsoft posted steep declines. Meta and Apple saw smaller dips. Total national H-1B applications dropped to 211,600 for 2027, from 343,981 the year before. A federal judge recently struck the fee down as an unlawful tax. The ruling creates a legal split that will likely head to the Supreme Court. The fee is set to expire on its own in September 2026.

The divergence all comes down to simple math. For cash-rich AI firms hunting a few hundred elite researchers, $100k a head is a rounding error. Nvidia’s 765 total applications are trivial next to its tens of billions in R&D budget. For small businesses that rely on a handful of H-1B workers, the fee is completely prohibitive. A Richmond Fed study found winning an H-1B lottery boosted small business survival rates between 2020 and 2023. This policy cut off that lifeline for most small operators. Even after the ruling, employers still face uncertainty over current filings. This policy never was about protecting American workers. It was a handout to deep-pocketed AI giants that can outpay everyone else for top global talent.

Author bio: Elena Rostova, public policy expert specializing in immigration policy and tech sector compliance assessments.