H-1B Visa Fee Hike: 20 Tech Giants That Could Be Hit Hardest


  • President Donald Trump’s executive order raises new H-1B visa fees to $100,000.
  • Tech firms have relied on H-1B visas to hire skilled foreign workers, like engineers.
  • These are the top companies that will be hit hardest by the H-1B visa fee hike.

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump late Friday, hiking H-1B visa application fees to $100,000, sent Silicon Valley into a tailspin.

H-1B visas have become a mainstay of the tech industry, allowing companies to hire highly-skilled workers from abroad, including engineers.

Affected tech workers and corporate lawyers initially scrambled to decipher the new policies, with companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta telling employees on H-1B visas to either stay in the US or return from abroad within 24 hours.

The Trump administration subsequently clarified that the fees would only apply to new applicants, not renewals or current H-1B holders.

The Trump administration said it implemented the changes to prevent system “abuses” and to encourage companies to train American workers.

Some applauded the new policy, including Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, who said it could mean the end of the lottery system, given H-1Bs are capped at 85,000 workers annually. Others worried cash-strapped startups would be most severely affected, or that the executive order could counterintuitively push more jobs out of the country.

Business Insider examined publicly available data from the Department of Labor and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to track which tech companies had the most H-1B visa approvals in 2025.

Bloomberg, Intel, and Nvidia declined to comment. The rest of the companies on this list did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Amazon


Amazon CEO Andy Jassy

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.


Fortune/Reuters

Total certified H-1B approvals: 15,043

Total employees worldwide: 1,556,000

Microsoft


Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.


Jason Redmond / AFP/ Getty Images

Total certified H-1B approvals: 6,043

Total employees worldwide: 228,000

Meta


Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.


David Zalubowski/ AP Images

Total certified H-1B approvals: 5,124

Total employees worldwide: 74,067

Alphabet


A photo of Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the inauguration of a Google AI hub in Paris on February 15, 2024.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.


ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

Total certified H-1B approvals: 4,319

Total employees worldwide: 183,323

Apple


Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC 2025.

Apple CEO Tim Cook.


Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Total certified H-1B approvals: 4,253

Total employees worldwide: 164,000

Oracle


Larry Ellison

Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison.


Getty

Total certified H-1B approvals: 2,135

Total employees worldwide: 162,000

Intel


Lip-Bu Tan

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.


Chiang Ying-ying/Associated Press

Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,707

Total employees worldwide: 108,900

IBM


Arvind Krishna, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM addresses the gathering on the first day of the three-day B20 Summit in New Delhi on August 25, 2023

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna.


Sajjad Hussain/Getty Images

Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,600

Total employees worldwide: 270,300

Cisco


Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins.


Mint/Getty Images

Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,576

Total employees worldwide: 86,200

Nvidia


Jensen Huang speaking at the Hill and Valley Forum at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.



Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images


Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,473

Total employees worldwide: 36,000

ByteDance


TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in Washington, DC on Tuesday February 14, 2023.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.


Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images.

Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,360

Total employees worldwide: 150,000

Salesforce


Marc Benioff, the CEO and cofounder of Salesforce.

Salesforce Marc Benioff.


Eric Risberg /AP

Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,137

Total employees worldwide: 76,453

Qualcomm


FILE PHOTO: Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm and Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, responds to a question during a panel discussion on 5G wireless broadband technology during the 2018 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. January 10, 2018. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.


Thomson Reuters

Total certified H-1B approvals: 1,039

Total employees worldwide: 49,000

Intuit


Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi.


Intuit

Total certified H-1B approvals: 742

Total employees worldwide: 18,200

Tesla


Elon Musk looks toward his right in the Oval Office at the White House.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.



Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images


Total certified H-1B approvals: 728

Total employees worldwide: 125,665

PayPal


Alex Chriss wearing a suit with his legs crossed onstage.

PayPal CEO Alex Chriss.



Alex Wong/Getty Images


Total certified H-1B approvals: 694

Total employees worldwide: 24,400

Uber


Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wearing a suit on a city street with an Uber billboard in the background.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.


Spencer Platt

Total certified H-1B approvals: 671

Total employees worldwide: 31,100

Adobe


Shantanu Narayen

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.


Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Total certified H-1B approvals: 562

Total employees worldwide: 30,709

Bloomberg


Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg cofounder Michael Bloomberg.


Chesnot/Getty Images

Total certified H-1B approvals: 560

Total employees worldwide: 26,000

ServiceNow


ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott.


ServiceNow

Total certified H-1B approvals: 517

Total employees worldwide: 26,293





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