Inside the H-1B Fallout: A Year of Upheaval Since the $100,000 Fee

A $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B petitions, introduced by the Trump administration in September 2025, has set off a year of disruption that is still reshaping skilled immigration to the United States.

Business Insider has now packaged its year of reporting on the consequences into a project called "H-1B Fallout." The series draws on interviews with more than two dozen H-1B visa holders and hopefuls, conversations with immigration lawyers, and analysis of federal application data by the outlet's data reporting team.

The fee was only the opening move. Over the following year, the administration made and proposed further changes touching multiple rungs of the immigration ladder, from student visas to green card sponsorships. For people chasing the American dream through the coveted H-1B visa, the result has been what Business Insider describes as a year of chaos.

What does the administration say?

The White House has defended the fee as a targeting mechanism. In a statement last month, a White House spokesperson said the H-1B fee was intended to focus sponsorship on "truly highly specialized temporary labor."

USCIS, the agency that administers the visa program, framed its goals in labor-market terms. A USCIS spokesperson said the agency aims to ensure employment-based visa programs "supplement, not supplant American workers."

Who has been hit hardest?

Business Insider's reporting team examined the H-1B system from the top down. It spoke with immigration lawyers and experts in policy and economics to identify the industries, employers, and workers emerging as winners and losers under the changing rules.

The outlet's data team analyzed the latest federal figures on H-1B applications to capture tangible shifts in application patterns. The project also explored which countries highly skilled foreign workers are turning to when their American plans collapse — a signal that the policy changes are redirecting global talent flows, not just filtering them.

What do the workers themselves say?

The project began with the people living inside the system. Before reporting broader trends, Business Insider spent hours listening to foreign nationals who had received or applied for an H-1B visa, many of whom had been caught in the crosshairs of shifting visa rules.

In the outlet's "as-told-to" format, they described what brought them to the US, the sacrifices of building a life there, and whether the H-1B dream ultimately paid off. Many asked not to be made fully visible, wary of exposure during a period of intense immigration crackdowns.

Three interviewees went further and shared their stories on camera. Each had hoped to build a life in the US through the H-1B system but ultimately left when those plans fell apart. They are now starting anew elsewhere and navigating the personal, professional, and financial consequences of an American dream that did not work out as planned.

Why it matters going forward

Business Insider says the project had two goals: to chronicle the impacts of a year of American immigration policy upheaval, and to keep the spotlight on the people whose careers and families are shaped — and sometimes disrupted — by those policies.

Taken together, the series functions as an early ledger of who bears the cost of the new rules. With the administration continuing to propose changes to student visas and green card sponsorship, the fallout Business Insider documented over the past year offers a preview of how skilled immigration to the US — and the industries that depend on it — will keep being redrawn.