NC employers react, others remain silent, as Trump sets $100,000 H-1B visa fee
President Donald Trump sent a ripple through North Carolina corporations, startups, nonprofits and even K-12 schools on Friday when he dramatically increased the price of a popular yet controversial foreign worker visa program. Under a presidential order that took effect two days later, hirers must pay $100,000 when they apply for each new H-1B visa, a figure far above the few thousand dollars employers had previously paid in filing fees.
“Most of my clients are small companies, and they’re not going to be able to afford that,” said Patrick Hatch, a partner with Hatch Rockers Immigration in Raleigh.
Started in 1990, the H-1B program was designed to pair foreign workers who possess at least a bachelor’s degree with specialized jobs that haven’t attracted qualified U.S. candidates. Visas can last up to six years, though workers who begin the green card application process may remain in the program as long as their employer continues to sponsor them. Most workers are in the tech industry and more than 70% in recent years have come from India.
Some of the world’s most valuable corporations — Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google — are five of the six top H-1B recipients this year. But the list of North Carolina beneficiaries ranges from tech giants to local architecture firms to several rural school districts that rely on the program to hire amid educator shortages.
Supporters say the program finds talent to plug domestic labor gaps. “If the idea is that, ‘Well, U.S. workers will fill those jobs,’ then cool, where are these thousands of thousands of U.S. workers?” said Rishi Oza, an attorney at Brown Immigration Law in Durham. “I talk to employers every single day (who) say they can’t find the talent.”
Eva Garland of Raleigh said her consulting firm has used the H-1B program to retain “the top-talented scientists” graduating from area universities. “If you take away the opportunity for 20-30% of the talent that’s coming out of the Triangle (to stay here), you’re really diluting our ability to stay at the forefront of innovation,” she said.
Yet others across the political spectrum allege many employers have exploited the program to find less expensive labor. “The large-scale replacement of American workers through systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security,” Trump wrote in his Sept. 19 order.
Liberal Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has also criticized the program. And in 2023, the pro-labor think tank Economic Policy Institute noted “the H-1B’s biggest users are companies that have laid off tens of thousands of workers.”
Congress caps the annual number of awarded H-1B visas at 85,000. Last year, a Bloomberg analysis found more than a quarter of 2023 awards went to IT staffing firms that sought out job candidates with more modest resumes and paid them less.
IBM, Bank of America, Infosys: Who in NC hires the most H-1Bs?
This year in North Carolina, the government awarded approximately 7,000 H-1B visas for nearly 1,000 employers. Yet these numbers don’t capture H-1B workers’ actual presence statewide as companies may apply for these visas at one centralized mailing address and then place workers in other states.
For example, IBM counts all of its 1,590 H-1B awards at its North Carolina address even though its workers are spread across the U.S. Conversely, Fidelity Investments records each of its 1,500-plus H-1B visa approvals in Massachusetts even though the company also maintains the largest workforce in Research Triangle Park.
Other prominent North Carolina employers who received at least 100 H-1B visa approvals in 2025 include Bank of America, Cisco, Lowe’s, Truist Bank, Duke University, and IQVIA. To obtain H-1B visas, employers must first advertise open positions in newspaper classifieds and offer the prevailing wage for their industry.
In a statement last year to The News & Observer, IBM said it had been “scaling back” its use of the high-skilled visa programs as it invested in programs “to help equip U.S. workers with in-demand skills.”
“IBM makes only limited use of these visas to fill gaps in the labor market for in-demand skills that are required to meet IBM’s and our clients’ needs,” company spokesperson Sarah Minkel had said in an email.
Bank of America, which received more than 700 visa approvals this year, has also told The N&O that it used H-1B visas selectively. “These are very specialized hires,” a spokesperson for the Charlotte-based bank said on background last year. “Typically, anything that we do is driven by a very specific skill. It is an extremely rigorous process. And it makes up less than 1% of our total workforce.”
Fees would hit big and small companies differently
Both Bank of America and IBM declined to comment this week on how the new $100,000 federal fee might shape their use of the program.
“I think a company like us couldn’t afford it,” Garland of Garland Consulting Group said. “A company like IBM, who gets a lot of H-1Bs potentially could. I think they’d need to be more selective than they currently are.”
Another large H-1B recipient with a sizable North Carolina footprint is the India-based tech consulting and staffing firm Infosys Ltd. In early 2017, company officials said they planned to hire 2,000 people at a new office in Raleigh. Infosys instead created 562 jobs in Wake County and retained more than 1,100 employees statewide, North Carolina records show, before the company exited its state hiring agreement in December. Infosys did not respond to questions about how the application fee could impact its North Carolina workforce.
“It seems the primary concern from employers is that the new fees are prohibitive,” said Brooks Raiford, president of the industry group North Carolina Technology Association. “Likely resulting in US companies moving more work offshore.”
Hitachi Energy, a Swiss company with its North American headquarters at N.C. State University’s Centennial Campus, said it needs more time to determine how $100,000 application fees could impact its use of the H-1B program.
“We are working to understand the full implications of this new regulation and determine the best path forward,” a company spokesperson said.
Schools seek exemptions for ‘national interest’
Trump’s order, which many expect to be challenged in court, sparked confusion and unanswered questions Friday as it was not initially clear whether the fee would be annual, apply to existing visas, or hinder current H-1B visa holders from traveling abroad. “There are rumors going out there,” Morrisville council member Steve Rao said.
In follow up guidance Saturday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services clarified the $100,000 fee was a one-time charge for each future application and that current visa workers could leave and reenter the country without their employer needing to pay.
The order also empowers the Secretary of Homeland Security to exempt individuals, companies, or entire industries from paying $100,000 per visa if “it is in the national interest” to do so.
Public educators say an exemption is essential for their ability to hire. “Without an exemption, the result could be a severe shortage of qualified teachers at a time when schools nationwide already face staffing challenges,” said Fatih Sahin, a spokesperson for TMSA Public Charter Schools, which operates charter schools across North Carolina, including in Wake and Mecklenburg counties.
Even with an exemption, the education industry may have less success attracting foreign workers due to a new rule the Department of Homeland Security announced Sunday to prioritize “high-paid aliens” in the competitive H-1B lottery, which opens in March.
T. Keung Hui contributed reporting.
This story was originally published September 23, 2025 at 1:31 PM.
