H-1B $100,000 Fee Blocked: What It Means for 2027

The $100,000 H-1B Fee Is Blocked — but the Thing That Actually Cut Your Odds Wasn’t the Fee

If you have been waiting since last autumn to hear whether an American employer could still afford to sponsor you, the answer changed on 24 July 2026. A federal appeals court refused to revive the H-1B $100,000 fee, which means the charge that froze thousands of offers is not being collected right now.

That is real news. It is also not the reason your odds got worse.

Is the H-1B $100,000 fee still in effect? A direct answer

No. As of 24 July 2026 the $100,000 H-1B payment requirement is not in effect. A federal district court vacated the policy, and the First Circuit Court of Appeals refused to pause that decision while the government’s appeal continues. Employers are back on the ordinary H-1B fee structure — roughly $3,380 in mandatory government filing fees for most employers, depending on company size.

How the fee rose and fell, in one timeline

On 19 September 2025, President Trump issued Proclamation 10973, imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions filed for beneficiaries located outside the United States. Agency guidance later clarified that the one-time payment applied only to new H-1B petitions filed on or after 21 September 2025 that were approved for consular processing.

In December 2025 a group of 20 states, led by the California and Massachusetts attorneys general, filed a federal challenge in Massachusetts.

On 8 June 2026, Judge Leo Sorokin of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the payment requirement. The court’s reasoning was that the $100,000 charge was in substance a tax, and under Article I of the Constitution the power to lay and collect taxes belongs to Congress rather than the President acting alone. The court also held that the agency actions implementing the payment breached the Administrative Procedure Act.

Then it wobbled. Days later the same judge temporarily stayed his own decision, letting USCIS keep collecting the fee while the government appealed. The government filed its motion to stay for the duration of the appeal on 18 June 2026.

On 24 July 2026 the First Circuit denied that motion. The administrative pause dissolved and the 8 June vacatur came back into force, meaning the policy should not be enforced against covered H-1B petitions while the appeal runs. The appeals court found the government had not shown it was likely to succeed in its argument that the district court ruling should be overturned. The order itself was blunt — the court wrote simply “We deny the motion.”

The correction most coverage skips: you were never the one paying

This matters, because a lot of forum advice in the past ten months has been wrong.

The $100,000 was never a fee charged to the visa applicant. It attached to the employer’s petition, and only to certain petitions — new ones, for people outside the United States, going through consular processing. If you were already in the US changing status from F-1 to H-1B, it did not touch you.

What it did to you was indirect and far more damaging: employers stopped extending offers to candidates abroad, because a single hire suddenly carried a six-figure surcharge. The fee did not price you out. It priced out the employer willing to sponsor you.

That is why the July ruling genuinely helps overseas candidates — it removes the reason your name got quietly dropped from a shortlist.

But this is not over

Be careful with headlines that say the fee is “struck down” and stop there.

The First Circuit ruled on the stay motion only. It did not decide the ultimate merits of the appeal and did not definitively hold that the payment is an unconstitutional tax. Its holding was narrow: the government failed to make a strong showing that it is likely to win.

The administration may seek emergency review from the US Supreme Court, and the underlying district court litigation continues. The requirement could return if a higher court grants a stay, if the government wins the appeal, or if Congress passes legislation authorising such a payment.

It is also not yet clear how the ruling affects employers who already paid the fee

Treat this as a window, not a settlement.

The bigger barrier nobody put in the headline

Here is the part that should change how you plan. While everyone watched the fee litigation, a different rule quietly rewrote the odds.

The DHS final rule establishing a weighted H-1B selection process took effect on 27 February 2026, in time for the FY 2027 registration season. FY 2027 was the first lottery ever run under wage-level-based selection rather than a straight random draw. USCIS

Under the old system, eligible beneficiaries generally had an equal probability of selection. Under the new framework, higher-wage registrations receive more entries in the selection pool.

The first year’s results are the story:

• Properly submitted registrations fell from 343,981 to 211,600 — a 38.5% drop.
• 71.5% of selected beneficiaries held US advanced degrees, up from 57% the previous year.
• Only 17.7% of selected registrations sat in the lowest prevailing wage category, OEWS Level 1.

Read that last number again. If you are an early-career candidate applying from abroad at an entry-level wage level, the selection pool has been reshaped against you — and no court ruling touches that rule.

FY 2027 is closed. Your next date is March 2027

USCIS announced on 17 July 2026 that both portions of the FY 2027 cap have been reached. Because enough petitions arrived by the 30 June filing deadline, the agency confirmed there will be no second lottery this year. Employers with unselected registrations must wait for the FY 2028 registration period, expected in spring 2027.

For reference, the FY 2027 registration window opened at noon Eastern on 4 March 2026 and closed at 5pm Eastern on 19 March 2026. Expect a similar two-week window next March.

This does not mean every H-1B route is shut. USCIS continues processing petitions that are not subject to the annual cap, including certain extensions, amendments, changes of employer, and petitions filed by qualifying cap-exempt organisations.

What to actually do between now and March 2027

1. Understand what a “wage level” is — it is not your salary.
A wage level is not determined solely by the offered dollar amount. It comes from the Department of Labor’s OEWS data for your occupation and location, combined with what the role itself requires in education, experience and supervision. A job written as a senior role in a high-wage metro sits at a higher level than the same title written as entry-level in a low-wage area. This is why two candidates with identical CVs can end up in different pools.

2. Target roles, not just employers. Since selection now favours higher wage levels, the single most useful thing you can do is qualify for a role that is genuinely pitched above Level 1 — more years of experience, a specialised skill, a metro with a higher prevailing wage.

3. Look seriously at cap-exempt employers. Universities and their affiliated non-profits, non-profit research organisations and government research institutes can sponsor H-1B outside the annual cap and outside the lottery entirely. There is no March window and no draw. For many overseas candidates this is a far better use of twelve months than waiting on a 1-in-many chance.

4. Get the US master’s question settled. With 71.5% of FY 2027 selections going to holders of US advanced degrees, the master’s-cap exemption is doing heavy lifting. If a US degree was already on your list, the data now argues for it.

5. Build a second country into the plan. Canada, Germany’s Opportunity Card and the UK Skilled Worker route all run on published criteria rather than a draw. Depending on one lottery for one country is a planning error, not a strategy.

One warning before you pay anyone

Every time an H-1B headline breaks, the “guaranteed sponsorship” adverts follow within days.

No agent can enter you into the H-1B lottery. Only a US employer with a genuine job offer can submit a registration, through a USCIS organisational account. If someone offers to register you for a fee, or promises a selection, that is not how the system works. Verify any employer independently, and check status and filing rules on uscis.gov rather than a third-party page.

Key Takeaways

• The H-1B $100,000 fee is not being collected. The First Circuit refused on 24 July 2026 to restore it during the government’s appeal.
• The fee was always an employer cost on new petitions for people abroad going through consular processing — never a charge on the applicant.
• The ruling was on the stay motion only. The appeal is live, and Supreme Court review is possible.
• The FY 2027 lottery already ran under wage-weighted selection. Level 1 wage registrations made up just 17.7% of selections.
• Registrations fell 38.5% year on year, and 71.5% of those selected held US advanced degrees.
• FY 2027 is closed with no second draw. The next registration window is expected around March 2027.

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