The Trump administration is proposing a $103,265 fee on every H-1B petition subject to the annual visa cap, using formal federal rulemaking after a federal court blocked collection of President Donald Trump’s separate $100,000 payment.
The Department of Homeland Security placed the proposal on public inspection Monday. The Federal Register will publish it on Tuesday, August 25, opening a 30-day public comment period. If DHS finalizes the rule as proposed, employers will pay the fee when filing a cap-subject H-1B petition, in addition to existing filing costs.
DHS does not describe the $103,265 proposal as a replacement for Trump’s proclamation. The agency says the two charges rely on different legal authority and cover different petitions.
The proposed fee would apply to all cap-subject petitions, including petitions in the 20,000-slot U.S. advanced-degree allocation, while excluding cap-exempt H-1B filings. The proposal does not list F-1 student status itself as an exemption.
The controlling question is whether the H-1B petition is subject to the annual cap.
DHS calculated the fee by dividing approximately $8.78 billion in projected annual immigration-system costs by 85,000 anticipated fee-paying petitions. The department projects about $8.8 billion in annual revenue that could support U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and immigration-related work at ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Justice Department’s immigration courts, the State Department and the Department of Labor.
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs completed its review on August 19 and classified the proposal as both economically significant and a major rule.
Court Fight Over $100,000 Payment
Trump issued the separate $100,000 payment requirement by proclamation in September 2025. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin vacated the implementing policy on June 8 after finding the administration lacked authority to impose the charge in the manner it had used. The government appealed on June 11.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the government’s request to stay Sorokin’s ruling in a July 24 order, leaving the vacatur in force while the appeal proceeds. DHS says the proclamation payment, unless extended, will expire before the proposed $103,265 fee could take effect.
Texas H-1B Fight Grows
The federal proposal arrives less than a week after Gov. Greg Abbott proposed legislation that would ban H-1B workers from Texas public schools, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
“Exactly zero Texas public school employees should be here on H-1B visas,” Abbott said during his August 18 announcement.
The Dallas Express has documented the program’s use in Dallas schools. Dallas ISD recorded 1,290 H-1B approvals from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2025, according to previous DX reporting. A separate DX investigation found that the district spent approximately $2.54 million on H-1B-related legal services between 2020 and late September 2025.
Those figures do not establish Dallas ISD’s potential cost under the new federal proposal. The $103,265 fee would attach only to cap-subject petitions, and the available public employer data do not show which district approvals involved cap-subject filings.
No responsible estimate of Dallas ISD’s potential cost can be made from the public records currently available.
Abbott’s proposed state ban would require legislative approval. The federal $103,265 fee also remains only a proposal. DHS must complete the public-comment process and issue a final rule before it can collect the new charge.
Provided by Dallas Express
