The U.S. is to impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, with possible repercussions for network talent in the nation.

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Friday mandated the fee on the non-immigrant visa, which allows American employers to hire foreign workers in specialty roles, with a pre-hike price of $215 per application.

The White House cited “systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on X that the $100K fee was a one-time payment to be paid by the applying firm, and not an annual one, as stated previously by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The new rules apply only to new visa applications and not renewals or current H1-B holders.

IT firms were specifically called out, with the Trump Administration claiming firms “laid off their qualified and highly skilled American workers and simultaneously hired thousands of H-1B workers.”

The White House cited four unnamed examples of tech firms, including one that laid off 2,400 American workers in Oregon in July - potentially the embattled Intel - while being approved for nearly 1,700 H-1B workers in the fiscal year (FY) of 2025.

Another firm “reportedly eliminated 1,000 jobs in February” while being approved for more than 1,100 H-1B workers for FY 2025. Public data shows that Cisco, for example, was approved for 1,570 H-1B visas in FY 2025. The company had separately announced plans to lay off 4,000 staff in February 2024. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings in California indicate 1,847 employees were made redundant in the state between February 2024 and July of this year.

Network talent and the H-1B

Created in 1990, the H-1B visa is reserved for specialty occupations, with 65,000 visas allocated each fiscal year for all eligible H-1B applicants, and an additional 20,000 set aside for those who have earned a master's degree or higher from a U.S. institution.

While no data exists for how many network employees currently hold H1-Bs or other U.S. working visas, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported employment for 179,200 computer network architects in 2024.

Public H1-B tracking sites count 716 network engineer Labor Condition Application (LCAs) so far in 2025. Since this figure includes renewals, transfers, and cap-exempt filings, the precise number is likely to be lower.

H-1B Employer Data Hub data shows that firms with large numbers of networking talent account for a large number of H-1B petitions in a given year.

Analysis of H-1B Employer Data Hub data reveals that companies employing a significant number of networking professionals are responsible for a substantial portion of H-1B petitions filed annually. These include Amazon Web Services (2,347 for 2025), Oracle (2,092), Google (4,181), Microsoft (5,189), and Qualcomm (871).

The vast majority (72%) of H1-B holders come from India, while the second most common country of birth was China, accounting for 12%.

Should the executive order be implemented in its current form, a brain drain from the U.S. to other nations could occur. Manish Singh, chief investment officer at London's Crossbridge Capital Group, suggested that the U.K., Canada, and India, through returning talent, would be significant beneficiaries.

This may jumpstart European efforts in AI and other next-gen technologies, with Juniper Networks' chief network strategist noting at last week's DCD Compute event that AI expertise was thin on the ground in the U.K. and Europe compared to the U.S. and Asia.