H-1B visa fee timeline imposed by US ‘concerning’, says India trade body

Nasscom says the one-day deadline could person ‘ripple effects’ connected the US innovation ecosystem, and planetary occupation markets.

India’s starring commercialized assemblage says the one-day timeline for implementing a caller $100,000 yearly interest connected H-1B idiosyncratic visas successful the United States was a substance of “concern”.

Nasscom, representing India’s $283bn IT and concern process outsourcing industry, connected Saturday said the policy’s abrupt rollout would impact Indian nationals and disrupt continuity of ongoing onshore projects for the country’s exertion services firms.

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“A one-day deadline creates sizeable uncertainty for businesses, professionals, and students crossed the world,” Nasscom said successful a statement, a time aft US President Donald Trump announced the fee, which comes into unit from Sunday.

H-1B visas let companies to sponsor overseas workers with specialised skills – specified arsenic scientists, engineers, and machine programmers – to enactment successful the US, initially for 3 years, but extendable to six years.

India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas past year, accounting for 71 percent of approved beneficiaries.

.@RNamb @sangeetagupta29 @doshikavita @shivendra_1969 @nasscomgtd pic.twitter.com/bSfCjDutjs

— nasscom (@nasscom) September 20, 2025

The caller H-1B measure, which volition apt look ineligible challenges, was announced alongside the instauration of a $1m “gold card” US residency programme.

Nasscom said the caller argumentation could person “ripple effects” connected the US innovation ecosystem and planetary occupation markets, pointing retired that for companies, “additional outgo volition necessitate adjustments”.

Nasscom added that argumentation changes of this standard were champion “introduced with capable modulation periods, allowing organisations and individuals to program efficaciously and minimize disruption”.

US officials connected Friday said the alteration to the H-1B programme would guarantee that companies would lone sponsor workers with the astir rarefied accomplishment sets. However, specified a prohibitive interest volition apt vastly alteration the H-1B system, which was created successful 1990 and awards 85,000 visas per twelvemonth connected a lottery system.

Supporters of the H-1B programme accidental it brings the champion and brightest to enactment successful the US, creating an borderline against overseas competitors. Critics person agelong charged that companies person abused the programme, utilizing it to wage little wages and to enforce less labour protections.

Tech entrepreneurs – including Trump’s erstwhile state Elon Musk – person warned against targeting H-1B visas, saying that the US does not person capable homegrown endowment to capable important tech assemblage occupation vacancies.

However, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said: “All the large companies are connected board.”

Geographically, California has the highest fig of H-1B workers, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Some analysts suggested the interest whitethorn unit companies to determination immoderate high-value enactment overseas, hampering the US’s presumption successful the high-stakes artificial quality contention with China, which astatine 11.7 percent of full H-1B visas ranks a distant second, according to authorities data.

Following the White House’s announcement, large US tech firms Microsoft, JPMorgan and Amazon advised employees holding H-1B visas to stay successful the US, according to interior emails reviewed by the Reuters quality agency.

The caller interest marks the Trump administration’s astir high-profile effort to overhaul the country’s impermanent employment visa system. Since taking bureau successful January, helium has launched a wide crackdown connected immigration, including efforts to bounds definite forms of undocumented immigration.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s overseas ministry connected Saturday said its officials would “comprehensively measure the interaction of these measures connected the advancement of [South Korean] companies and nonrecreational talents into the US marketplace and prosecute successful indispensable connection with the US”.

Hundreds of South Koreans were detained during a US migration raid connected a Hyundai-LG artillery mill tract successful the authorities of Georgia this month.