H-1B $100,000 fee 2027: extended to 21 September 2027, paused by courts

Summary. On paper, the $100,000 H-1B payment runs for another year: Proclamation 11069, signed on 18 September 2026, extends it to 21 September 2027. In practice, US employers are not paying it. A federal court in Massachusetts vacated the agency policies that collect it on 8 June 2026, the First Circuit refused to stay that ruling on 24 July 2026, and on 30 September 2026 a California court vacated and enjoined the policies under both the 2025 proclamation and the extension until the agencies complete notice-and-comment rulemaking. USCIS says DHS will comply while it considers next steps and still plans to collect if the orders are lifted. Separately, DHS proposed a $103,265 fee on every cap-subject H-1B petition on 25 August 2026; no final rule had been published by 13 November 2026. The wage-weighted lottery stays, and FY2028 registration dates are not yet announced. Standard government fees for a cap-subject petition from an employer with more than 25 staff total $3,595. For 2027, carry a $100,000 contingency on any hire coming from abroad, prefer US hires and in-country changes of status, and price an offshore team as the hedge, remembering that foreign software development is amortised over 15 years for US tax.

About this article. Written for CTOs, engineering managers and finance leads at US companies planning 2027 headcount. We checked presidential documents, court orders, USCIS guidance and fees, Federal Register rulemakings, the federal regulatory review list and BLS pay data on 13 November 2026. This is general information, not legal, immigration or tax advice, and cost inputs marked as assumptions are ours, so replace them with your own. Researched with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team.

What changed: an extension on paper, a pause in practice

Two things happened in September 2026, and engineering budgets need both. On 18 September the President signed Proclamation 11069, extending Proclamation 10973 for 12 months to 12:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on 21 September 2027, and Executive Order 14431, which tells State, Labor and DHS to weigh whether a sponsoring employer laid off similar US workers in the previous year or plans to.

Sources for the timeline are the proclamation, court records, USCIS and the Federal Register; the December 2025 ruling and 9 October appeal are as reported by immigration counsel.

The proclamation records why it was extended: the $100,000 has been paid on more than 700 petitions, the largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms cut their combined registrations from 24,946 to 2,055 (92%), and consular processing requests fell by nearly 97% between the FY2025 and FY2027 cap seasons. It also asks the Secretaries of State, Labor and Homeland Security and the Attorney General to recommend, within 30 days of the next H-1B lottery, whether to extend again. Treat 21 September 2027 as a review point, not a guaranteed end date.

Who pays the $100,000, and when, if collection resumes

USCIS's implementing guidance, still posted beside the court alert, shows what employers would face if an appeals court lifts the orders. The payment is an employer cost, made before filing.

How and when to pay. USCIS tells petitioners to pay through pay.gov before filing and to include proof that the payment has been scheduled, or evidence of an exception, with the petition; petitions that need the payment and arrive without that proof are denied. The proclamation also requires employers to keep that proof, and the State Department to approve visas only where the payment was made.

Exceptions. The DHS Secretary can exempt an individual, all workers at a company or a whole industry where the hiring is in the national interest and poses no security threat. USCIS reserves this for very rare cases in which no American worker is available and making the employer pay would significantly undermine US interests; requests go to a DHS mailbox with supporting evidence. No engineering budget should assume one.

Timing quirk for 2027. USCIS ties the payment to the date a petition is filed. On that approach, a FY2028 cap petition filed in April 2027 falls inside the extension window, even though the worker cannot start before 1 October 2027, ten days after the proclamation is due to lapse.

The court rulings, in plain terms

The courts have split. In December 2025 the federal district court in Washington, DC upheld the proclamation and the agency policies in a suit brought by the US Chamber of Commerce and the Association of American Universities. The DC Circuit heard argument on 9 March 2026 and had issued no published opinion by 13 November 2026.

In a suit brought by 20 states, the District of Massachusetts granted summary judgment on 8 June 2026 and vacated the whole set of DHS and State Department actions implementing the payment. The First Circuit's 24 July 2026 order refusing a stay explains the core problem: the government had not made a strong showing that the statutes it relied on, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), clearly authorise a payment of this kind, and Congress names fees explicitly where it imposes them elsewhere in the immigration code.

On 30 September 2026 the Northern District of California went further for the extension. Ruling on a preliminary injunction motion, it vacated and remanded the agency policies and barred their enforcement under Proclamation 10973 and its extension in Proclamation 11069 until notice-and-comment rulemaking and regulatory flexibility analyses are done. The judge noted that, after the Massachusetts ruling, the $100,000 fee was no longer in effect. Immigration counsel report that the government appealed to the Ninth Circuit on 9 October 2026.

USCIS's alert, repeated on its Form I-129 page (updated 10 November 2026) and its fee schedule page, says DHS disagrees, will comply while it considers next steps, and still plans to collect the payment if the order is lifted. The alert mentions only the Massachusetts order. Nobody has said whether DHS would seek the payment for petitions filed during the pause, and no court has decided it. That is why a contingency belongs in the budget.

The proposed $103,265 fee: a proposal, not law

The second six-figure number is a different measure under a different legal authority. On 24 August 2026 USCIS announced a DHS proposed rule, published in the Federal Register the next day, to charge $103,265 on every H-1B cap-subject petition, including master's-cap cases, paid at filing and on top of all other fees or payments. DHS estimates it would raise about $8.8 billion a year on a projected 85,000 cap-subject petitions. It would not apply to cap-exempt petitioners such as universities, nonprofit research organisations and government research organisations.

The difference matters for hiring plans. The $100,000 payment, if it returns, hits workers coming from abroad. The proposed fee, if finalised as written, would also hit the route most US tech companies rely on: an F-1 graduate already in the US changing status after the lottery. Comments closed on 24 September 2026. A proposed rule changes nothing until DHS publishes a final rule, which may differ from the proposal. We found none in the Federal Register on 13 November 2026, and the fee rule was not on the federal list of rules under review that day.

The same pipeline faces a second proposal. On 8 October 2026 DHS proposed that a school pay $70,000 per student before first recommending Optional Practical Training (OPT), and $30,000 for any later OPT period; comments closed on 9 November 2026. If finalised, it could thin the OPT pool that many change-of-status hires come from.

Weighted selection and the FY2028 cap season

The lottery that decides who can file a cap petition is now weighted by wage. Each registration declares the highest Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) wage level the offered salary meets for the job's SOC code and location. USCIS enters Level IV registrations four times, Level III three times, Level II twice and Level I once; each person counts only once toward the numbers. DHS adopted the process in a final rule published on 29 December 2025 and first used it for FY2027.

What the first weighted season showed, according to the White House:

• Registrations fell by almost 40% for FY2027.

• Registrations for beneficiaries with at least a US master's degree rose from 45.1% of the total (FY2026) to 66.1% (FY2027).

• The two highest wage levels took about 46.3% of selections; Level I took 17.8%.

For scale, the last fully published season (FY2026) had 343,981 eligible registrations and 120,141 selections, about 35% under the old random draw. The statutory caps remain 65,000 regular visas plus 20,000 for US master's graduates.

FY2028 dates. USCIS had not announced them by 13 November 2026; its registration page still shows the FY2027 timeline. Last year registration opened at noon Eastern on 4 March and closed at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on 19 March, USCIS aimed to notify selections by 31 March, and petitions could be filed from 1 April with start dates no earlier than 1 October. The registration fee was $215 per beneficiary, and USCIS says the window lasts at least 14 calendar days.

Two rulemakings could change the arithmetic before then. DOL's 27 March 2026 proposal would raise the prevailing wage floor at every level, for example Level I from the 17th to the 34th percentile of OEWS pay and Level IV from the 67th to the 88th. DOL sent its final rule for review on 6 November 2026, so publication could come before the FY2028 season. A DHS proposed rule titled Reforming the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program has also been under review since 24 August 2026; its contents are not public.

What an H-1B petition costs in government fees today

USCIS's fee schedule (edition dated 26 October 2026) and the Form I-129 instructions set these amounts for H-1B petitions. Premium processing and legal fees are excluded.

A 120-person software company filing on paper for a cap-subject engineer pays $215 + $780 + $600 + $1,500 + $500 = $3,595. Since 9 September 2026, the $4,000 Public Law 114-113 fee also applies to extensions for covered employers, which mostly affects staffing and outsourcing firms with H-1B-heavy workforces.

Worked example: four senior engineers for a 120-person US SaaS company

A 120-person SaaS company in Austin needs four senior backend engineers starting in late 2027. It compares six ways to fill each seat over three years, the usual length of an initial H-1B admission. The salary is the BLS median for software developers in May 2025, and the fees come from the USCIS schedule above.

Three-year employment cost is $135,980 x 1.27 x 3 = $518,084 per engineer before recruiting.

Across four seats, route A costs $2,181,120 over three years. Route D adds $478,380 to that, and route E adds $891,440. Today, routes B and C are within 4% of a US hire, so the visa itself is no longer the cost problem. The problems are uncertainty and timing: every cap route depends on winning a weighted lottery in spring 2027, and no cap-subject engineer can start before 1 October 2027.

The offshore comparison needs its own inputs. As a test input only, an all-in vendor rate of $45 an hour for 1,800 billed hours a year is $81,000 a year, or $243,000 per seat over three years; adding 15% for oversight on your side (our assumption) gives $279,450. For a profitable C corporation, amortising that foreign development over 15 years from the middle of the tax year, instead of deducting it at once, costs about 8.5% of vendor spend after tax, in present-value terms, at the 21% federal rate and an 8% discount rate (our assumption). The US costs above are pre-tax, so divide by 0.79 to compare like with like: about 10.8% of vendor spend, or roughly $26,300 per seat. Our Section 174A guide works through that tax line. That puts the offshore seat near $305,700 pre-tax, about 56% of route A (the same ratio as comparing both sides after tax), before differences in overlap hours, ramp-up and seniority. Our offshore vs nearshore vs onshore cost guide gives the break-even formula for those factors.

Hiring routes compared for 2027

The table draws on the proclamation, the proposed fee, USCIS's cap and L-1 rules and the tax code.

The L-1 route needs at least one continuous year of work for a qualifying foreign affiliate within the three years before admission, in a managerial, executive or specialised-knowledge role, so it suits companies that already run an overseas office.

Decision table: choose X if

If you pick the hybrid route, read our note on five ways offshore engineering teams in India fail before you split the work.

A 2027 checklist for engineering and finance leaders

1. Inventory 2027 hires that need a visa. Split them into in-country changes of status and consular cases; only the second group faces the $100,000 if collection resumes.

1. Carry a contingency. Budget $100,000 per consular case until the First, Ninth and DC Circuits rule, and ask counsel whether DHS could seek payment for petitions filed during the pause.

1. Set wage levels on purpose. Under weighted selection, a Level III or IV offer gets three or four entries; a Level I offer gets one.

1. Diary the FY2028 window. Expect registration in March 2027 and confirm dates on the USCIS cap page; have passports, SOC codes and wage levels ready in February.

1. Track five rulemakings. The DHS $103,265 fee, DOL's prevailing wage rule (final version under review), the unpublished DHS H-1B reform rule, the OPT fee proposal, and any notice-and-comment rule DHS writes to revive the payment.

1. Check layoffs. Executive Order 14431 asks agencies to weigh layoffs of similar US workers in the previous year or planned ones; align HR and immigration counsel before filing.

1. Watch the extension review. A recommendation on another extension is due within 30 days of the FY2028 lottery.

1. Price the hedge. Get offshore quotes now and run them through the break-even formula and the tax model before March decisions.

How eCorpIT can help

eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology organisation, founded in 2021, assessed at CMMI Level 5 and MSME certified, with senior-led engineering teams working across AWS, Microsoft and Google platforms. When a US hire is delayed by the lottery or exposed to the $100,000 contingency, our application development services team can run a scoped build or a dedicated pod from India alongside your US leads, with effort reported by location so your tax adviser can apply Sections 174 and 174A. Talk to us at /contact-us/.

Last updated: 13 November 2026.

References

1. Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers, proclamation of 18 September 2026 — The White House

1. California v. Mullin, No. 26-1699, order denying stay pending appeal, 24 July 2026 — US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

1. Global Nurse Force v. Trump, No. 25-cv-08454-HSG, order of 30 September 2026 (Dkt. 130) — US District Court for the Northern District of California, via CourtListener RECAP

1. H-1B Specialty Occupations, including the proclamation guidance and court alert — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. Fee for Certain H-1B Petitions, proposed rule, 91 FR 54817, 25 August 2026 — Federal Register, via GovInfo

1. Form G-1055, Fee Schedule, edition 10/26/26 — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. 26 U.S. Code § 174, Amortization of research and experimental expenditures — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School

1. Executive Order 14431, Enhancing Program Integrity and Interagency Coordination in the Administration of the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Program, 91 FR 60501 — Federal Register, via GovInfo

1. Oral argument recordings, March 2026, No. 25-5473 Chamber of Commerce v. DHS — US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit

1. H-1B Electronic Registration Process — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. Improving Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Foreign Nationals in the United States, proposed rule, 91 FR 15454, 27 March 2026 — Federal Register, via GovInfo

1. EO 12866 regulatory reviews currently under review (XML), run date 13 November 2026 — Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, reginfo.gov

1. Optional Practical Training Fees, proposed rule, 91 FR 64566, 8 October 2026 — Federal Register, via GovInfo

1. The H-1B $100,000 payment and proposed $103,265 fee, updated 23 October 2026 (secondary source for the DC ruling date and the Ninth Circuit appeal) — Kevin J Andrews Law

1. H-1B Cap Season — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. G-1055, Fee Schedule (page and alerts) — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. DHS Proposes Additional H-1B Fee, 24 August 2026 — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Further Enhances Program Integrity and Interagency Coordination in the H-1B Visa Program, 18 September 2026 — The White House

1. Instructions for Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, edition 09/09/26 — US Citizenship and Immigration Services

1. Occupational Outlook Handbook: Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers, last modified 27 August 2026 — US Bureau of Labor Statistics

1. 26 U.S. Code § 174A, Domestic research or experimental expenditures — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School

1. 26 U.S. Code § 11, Tax imposed — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School

1. L-1B Intracompany Transferee Specialized Knowledge — US Citizenship and Immigration Services