Trump has made it harder to grant visas to talented foreigners. How might this affect bigtech?
Companies' spending on human resources may increase due to a more than 10-fold increase in visa fees for foreigners, but the market has so far reacted with restraint to this risk
American corporations will have to pay significantly more for hiring talented foreigners after a new decree by President Donald Trump. The cost of the popular H-1B visa, which is actively used by technology giants, has increased more than tenfold to $100,000. Investors have so far reacted with restraint: the largest companies can afford to pay such a fee for the best specialists.
Details
Late last week, the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 fee for H-1Bs, a special type of work visa for highly skilled professionals. Until recently, employers in the U.S. paid up to $7330 for them. The main users of this type of visa are major technology companies. According to Barron's, more than 40% of the 85,000 H-1B visas available in FY 2025 were requested by six of the "Magnificent Seven" companies - Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Nvidia. The leader among them was Amazon, which issued more than 14,000 such visas.
The securities of the "Magnificent Seven" companies after the tightening of visa measures remained generally stable, according to Reuters. At the opening of trading on September 22 in Frankfurt, they fluctuated in a narrow range - from a decline of 0.2% to an increase of 1.1%. The agency predicts that the financial impact on companies will be limited in the short term, especially after the White House urgently clarified over the weekend that the fee applies only to new applications and not to visas already issued.
"Even if the measure were retroactive, for JPMorgan Chase, for example, the one-time cost would amount to only 0.4% of annual profits. If you spread that amount over the employee's three- to five-year tenure, the $100,000 fee becomes an acceptable fee for hiring the best and brightest," the article says.
What other U.S. companies are affected by this
In the top 10 companies in terms of the number of H-1B visas issued from January to June 2025, eight are American: in addition to Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Google, the top ten included Cognizant Technology Solutions, JPMorgan Chase and Walmart, Reuters reported, citing data from the U.S. immigration service.
Trump's executive order may contain a hidden attack on Salesforce and Intel - these companies, along with Amazon and Microsoft, used the program to attract talent from abroad in 2025, while reducing their staff, Barron's writes. The decree states that American technology companies are using the visa program not to hire specialists for top positions, but to fill entry-level positions, "to artificially lower salaries, creating unfavorable conditions in the labor market for Americans."
What bigtech will do
In practice, U.S. corporations are likely to respond to Trump's executive order in two ways, according to Reuters. First, they will step up outsourcing work overseas where possible. If Washington does not tax outsourcing payments, India, the Philippines and Mexico could be the main beneficiaries.
Second, companies will begin to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies to reduce the need for manpower. This will lead to the exact opposite of what Trump wants: to push employers to hire U.S. graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields to combat unemployment in this group, the agency notes.
It will be important for investors to keep an eye on how companies will adjust their hiring plans in the coming months and how the possible rise in staff costs will affect margins, concludes TipRanks.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
