H-1B Filings Under the $100,000 Fee: The First Data Is In
DOL data now covers six months of filings under the $100,000 H-1B fee: applications for new jobs fell 41% while job changers held steady and pay hit a record.
The Department of Labor's newest LCA disclosure covers applications decided from January through March 2026. Combined with the prior quarter, the data now shows the first six months of filings under the $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions, and the effect is unmistakable: applications for new H-1B jobs fell sharply, applications for workers changing employers did not, and the median certified salary is the highest in our data.
The fee came from a presidential proclamation signed September 19, 2025, effective two days later. It applies to new H-1B petitions for workers outside the United States, on top of existing filing fees. A federal court struck the fee down on June 8, 2026, in State of California v. Noem, ruling it an unlawful tax, but the court stayed its own decision while the government appeals, so the fee is still being collected today.
Source: Proclamation of September 19, 2025, Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers, Federal Register
Filings for new jobs fell 41%, job changers held steady
DOL certified 109,551 H-1B LCAs in the January to March quarter, down 8% from 119,519 in the same quarter a year earlier. The quarter before that, October to December 2025, came in at 73,092, down 24% year over year. Across the six months, total filings fell 15%.
The composition matters more than the totals. Filings for new employment fell 41% across the six months, from 39,485 to 23,181. Filings for workers changing employers barely moved, 38,602 against 39,608 a year earlier, and in the newest quarter they rose 12%. That split matches the fee's design: it targets new petitions for workers outside the US, while workers already here who switch employers are largely outside its reach.
An LCA is a wage attestation an employer files with the Department of Labor before it can petition for an H-1B worker. A certified LCA is not a visa and not a hire. One application can cover several positions, and not every certified application becomes a petition. Counts in this post are applications certified during each quarter.
The median salary is the highest in our data
The median annual salary across certified H-1B LCAs was $130,853 in the newest quarter and $130,635 in the one before it. Those are the two highest quarterly medians in our database, which covers every certified LCA back to October 2020. A year earlier the median was $129,272.
The same pattern shows up employer by employer. Meta posted a median of $214,002, up $16,000 from a year earlier and the highest among the large filers. Ernst & Young's median jumped almost $15,000 to $140,491. Google's rose $11,000 to $193,000, and Microsoft reached $180,000.
Fewer filings at higher pay is consistent with employers reserving sponsorship for senior, better-paid roles now that a new petition can carry a $100,000 surcharge.
Google filed 64% less; a few employers grew
Amazon was the quarter's largest filer at 2,886 certified applications, down 30% from 4,118 a year earlier. Google cut deepest among big tech: 1,838 applications against 5,097 last year, down 64%. Microsoft fell 30% to 1,517, Intel fell 46% to 875, and Walmart fell 48% to 458. Ernst & Young, the largest consulting filer, dropped 47% to 2,453.
Not everyone pulled back. JPMorgan Chase grew filings 48% to 1,252. Infosys more than doubled, from 714 to 1,650. NVIDIA rose 19% to 765, and Meta held essentially flat at 1,713.
What to watch next
Two things decide where this goes. The first is the courts: the government has appealed the June ruling to the First Circuit, and the proclamation as written expires in September 2026 unless extended. The second is the next disclosure. The April to June quarter is cap season, when employers file for the new graduates selected in the lottery: a year ago that quarter alone had 220,865 certified LCAs, 114,542 of them for new jobs. When DOL publishes it, the fee's effect on new hiring will be fully visible. We will cover it here when the data lands.
Every number in this post comes from the data behind our employer pages. You can search more than 163,000 employers by name for filing counts, salary statistics, and job titles, or open any employer's page for its quarterly history.
If you are on F-1 status and H-1B is the next step, our guide to the H-1B cap season for OPT students explains how OPT, the lottery, and cap-gap fit together.