Here’s what the new visa fee means for businesses and institutions

President Donald Trump’s administration says recent changes to a long-running visa program — one created to funnel top talent to U.S. colleges and businesses — are aimed at bolstering wages and protecting jobs for citizens while curbing abuse of the program.

But business and community leaders in Utah and across the country are warning that the new $100,000 fee on new applications and other changes for H-1B applicants will have widespread negative consequences, including stifling innovation, unfairly harming smaller businesses and eroding economic benefits worth billions of dollars.

Utah Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Derek Miller voiced serious opposition to proposed changes to the program, warning they would damage the state’s innovation economy and are “a very bad idea.”

“Utah businesses are being impacted by this,” Miller told the Deseret News. “It will certainly have an impact, especially in our tech companies … advanced manufacturing, and frankly research universities like the U. and USU who utilize these visas. Why do they do it? To try to get the very best talent they can.”

As head of Utah’s statewide chamber — following a recent restructuring of the Salt Lake Chamber — Miller emphasized his responsibility to offer an unvarnished take on a policy shift he believes will lead to negative outcomes for the Utah business community.

“I’m the president of the Chamber,” Miller said. “I can’t be afraid to call a bad idea, a bad idea. When the president, governor, mayor, legislator or member of Congress has a great idea, I’ll be the first to say it, regardless of party or personality. And I also have to be willing to do the other side of it.”

What is an H-1B visa?

The H-1B program was created by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 with the intent of allowing U.S. employers to hire highly skilled foreign talent, especially in science, engineering and technology. Currently, the program is capped at 65,000 new visas per year with an additional 20,000 available for individuals holding advanced degrees earned at U.S. institutions.

Under the current regulations, U.S. employers submit petitions for potential H-1B visa candidates during a two week window every March. The Department of Homeland Security then uses a random selection process — a lottery — to select beneficiaries until the cap is reached.

The changes announced in September revisit H-1B program concerns Trump tried to address during his first term as part of his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order. They included a proposal to revise the definition of “specialty occupations” as it applied to H-1B candidates, replace the lottery with a wage-based system and eliminate work authorization opportunities for the spouses of H-1B holders. Although most of the rule changes were blocked by courts or rescinded, the climate for the specialized visas became more restrictive and uncertain.

A self-inflicted wound?

Miller said one of his core criticisms of the H-1B changes is the imposition of the six-figure fee on employers to sponsor H-1B visas, a move he says will not only crush startups but divert funding from innovation efforts.

“For a company that is bootstrapping in a basement or garage — $100K is an impediment that is a full stop,” Miller said. “Money is not infinite… if it’s going toward visas, it’s not going toward innovation.

“It seems like a needless, self-inflicted wound … a multiplier effect that we can’t even begin to comprehend.”

Miller highlighted that Utah’s tech ecosystem relies heavily on highly skilled foreign workers and warned against the false narrative that H-1B holders take jobs from Americans.

“I do recognize there is an issue that has been raised … that these H-1B visa recipients are taking jobs from Americans,” Miller said. “That’s certainly not true in Utah. We’re still not able to keep up with every job being created getting filled, especially in these highly technical jobs. It’s a one-size-fits-all government solution to a problem we don’t have.”

Miller credited the Trump administration for reducing illegal border crossings but emphasized that a fix to the legal immigration side is equally important — and increasingly urgent.

“That’s why it’s disappointing to see this proposal to create barriers to this legal path, especially with people with H-1Bs who contribute the most, not just to their own benefit, but to our entire economy,” Miller said.

Following the announcement of changes to the program, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce weighed in with its own concerns.

“We’re concerned about the impact on employees, their families and American employers,” according to a statement. “We’re working with the administration and our members to understand the full implications and the best path forward.”

Chaos and ambiguity

Immigration attorney David Wilks, a partner at Hodgson Russ in New York and secretary of the Immigration Lawyers Association, unpacked the mounting confusion and legal ambiguity surrounding the Trump administration’s changes to the H-1B visa process. He described a chaotic legal landscape, with employers, employees and attorneys alike scrambling for clarity.

“Ultimately, right now we’re in a phase where people are trying to get their bearings,” Wilks said. “The executive order and information shared at the press conference (following the announcement of changes), seemed to indicate that this would be broadly applied … but the initial executive order wasn’t explicit.”

Wilks noted that while the order referenced new fees for H-1B petitions, the infrastructure to actually collect the fees has not been implemented.

“There is no mechanism,” Wilks said. “We haven’t seen the rollout of how to pay this fee … we don’t yet know fully how this is going to happen.”

With new policies aimed at increasing both the filing cost and the required salary for H-1B holders, Wilks warned of a chilling effect on participation.

“Ultimately, what this does is add costs to the H-1B program,” he said. “I think it will cause every company to rethink their immigration strategy.

While Trump’s executive order directing changes to the program was framed under national security authority similar to a travel ban, Wilks said it signals a deeper shift in U.S. immigration posture.

“This is new. We haven’t seen a fee like this before,” he said. “It’s going to shift things … and cause people to think earlier about what their long-term plans are in the U.S.

“Whenever you are in an immigration status, there are tradeoffs to be made. You can’t just do anything you want to do.”

Utah’s H-1B landscape

While publicly accessible data on current H-1B holders is spotty, the specialty work authorizations appear to be distributed in Utah at ratios similar to the national level.

According to a U.S. Customs and Immigration report for fiscal year 2024, the top five job categories for approved visas are:

• Computer-related jobs, 63.9%
• Architecture, engineering, and surveying, 10.2%
• Education, 6%
• Administrative specializations, 5.4%
• Medicine and health, 4.2%

The University of Utah is one of the state’s biggest H-1B employers and, according to a spokesperson, the school currently counts about 300 holders of the specialty visas on its staff rolls. For now, the school is waiting for further clarity on the changes to the program and “continuing to monitor the Department of Homeland Security’s implementation.”

Veteran Utah tech entrepreneur Nate Sanders, the chief experience officer at Lehi-based artificial intelligence startup SchoolAI, told the Deseret News he has serious concerns and frustrations over the uncertainty surrounding potential changes to the H-1B visa program, highlighting the essential role it plays in the U.S. tech and AI ecosystems.

“There’s a lot coming down the pipe on this … and no one fully knows what it will be yet,” Sanders said.

Sanders said he has personally managed multiple H-1B sponsorships and transfers throughout his career and emphasized how foundational immigrant talent has been to the tech industry, especially artificial intelligence.

“Two of the seminal papers on AI were authored by immigrants,” he said. “OpenAI alone is probably 10–15% H-1B holders.”

Sanders warned that new visa fees or regulatory shifts would disproportionately hurt startups and smaller companies, tipping the balance even further in favor of tech giants.

“The fee itself is going to create this bias for who can actually do a sponsorship,” he said, noting the new fees would inflate the average salary of a software engineer by about 66%. “There aren’t going to be any early-stage companies doing R&D that are actually going to have an opportunity to afford this.”

And Sanders urged policymakers to expand — not restrict — access to skilled immigration.

“Regardless of politics … the incentives are skewed,” he said. “We should not be trying to cap or limit these types of programs, we should be increasing the number of ways we can get talented individuals to come here.”

What’s next for the H-1B program?

The proposed H-1B changes are still in early stages and Homeland Security is expected to publish a full draft of the new rules for public comment in the next few months.

Even though the final edict has yet to be issued, legal challenges are already underway, including one from a group of unions, higher education professionals, religious organizations and others who sued the Trump administration earlier this month over the $100,000 fee, according to a New York Times report.

The plaintiffs in the suit, filed in federal court in California, argue that the change was unlawful because the president had no authority to unilaterally impose taxes or other requirements to generate revenue through the program, a power that is granted to Congress.

Note: Attorney David Wilks is the nephew of Deseret News executive editor Doug Wilks.