Trump implements new $100,000 America First H-1B visa fee, WA state Tech Sector facing billions in cost

Lynnwood Times ^ | 9/19/2025 | Mario Lotmore

[marcusmaximus]

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Foreign workers, starting September 21, can’t enter the U.S. on an H-1B visa unless their employer’s petition (the paperwork requesting the visa) includes an extra $100,000 payment to the federal government. This fee must be renewed and paid annually, according to United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

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Nationally, there are approximately 730,000 active H-1B holders as of early 2025.

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Washington currently ranks 4th nationally for H-1B activity. The state, particularly the Seattle metropolitan area, is a major hub for the U.S. tech industry, with companies like Amazon and Microsoft relying heavily on H-1B visas to hire skilled foreign workers in fields like software engineering and AI.

The Technology Sector is an estimated $180 billion industry in Washington state with approximately 25,838 Labor Condition Applications (a metric for H-1B positions) in 2025—Amazon alone secured over 10,000 approvals and Microsoft more than 5,000. This concentration of H-1B visa holders means that Washington state could face a disproportionate effect because of the Proclamation compared to the national average.

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This new annual $100,000 fee, per H-1B visa worker, imposed on employers could possibly even impact the housing sector as H-1B visa workers who are laid off because of this new cost burden on employers, return to their country of origin. However, college graduates and new homebuyers may benefit.

[bobcat62]

The perfect opportunity for our recent unemployed graduates & laid off Tech veterans to be put to work.

[CodeToad]

Does Microsoft even have any Americans working there anymore?

[Campion]

We’ll get more programmers if we don’t lowball their salaries and fire them just to hire foreigners to take their place.

[kiryandil]

I see the low intellect keyworders are at it.

I see the low intellect non-donaters to FR are scolding and freep-loading again.

[reardensteel]

Not the case. I know from having been in the middle of it. There are huge compounds created in India by these companies to do their work.

[FLT-bird]

If the work could be moved to India that easily and could be done as well, it would have been moved to India permanently a long time ago. They never would have brought a lot of it back to the US and thus wouldn’t have needed H1bs.