Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return to the US immediately before the Trump administration’s September 21 deadline, after which companies will be required to pay $100,000 per year for each H-1B worker visa. According to an internal email reviewed by Reuters, the software giant has also advised those already in the US to stay there for the foreseeable future.“H-1B visa holders should stay in the US for the foreseeable future. Also recommend H-4 visa holders remain in the US. Strongly recommend H-1B and H-4 visa holders return to the US tomorrow before the deadline,” Microsoft said in its email to employees as quoted by Reuters.

H-1B visa to cost more

Donald Trump has signed an executive order on Friday, September 19 introducing a $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visa applications, dealing a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China. Anticipating the tech industry’s response to the changes, Trump said “I think they’re going to be very happy”. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said “If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs”. White House staff secretary Will Scharf said, “One of the most abused visa systems is the H1-B non-immigrant visa programme. This is supposed to allow highly skilled labourers who work in fields that Americans don’t work in to come into the United States of America. What this proclamation will do is raise the fee that companies pay to sponsor H-1B applicants to $100,000. This will ensure that the people they’re bringing in are actually very highly skilled and that they’re not replaceable by American workers.“

India accounts for most H-1B visas

India remained the leading recipient of H-1B visas last year. As per the government data, the country alone accounted for 71% of approved beneficiaries, with China trailing at 11.7%. In the first half of 2025, Amazon and its cloud unit AWS secured approvals for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft and Meta each obtained over 5,000 approvals.