H-1B $100K Fee: Do You Have to Pay It Right Now?

Short Answer: Will They Collect the Fees or Not?

They are not collecting them now, and nobody can lawfully demand the $100,000 from you today. That single sentence answers the question flooding Reddit and employer Slack channels — "so will they collect the fees or not?" — but the honest second sentence is that the fight is not over. The payment rests on presidential proclamations that no court has struck down; what courts have struck down, twice, is the machinery agencies built to collect it. As long as those orders stand, USCIS, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have no lawful way to take your $100,000. If an appellate court lifts either order, collection could restart without any new proclamation, because USCIS has stated plainly on its own fee schedule page that it still plans to collect the payment if the orders are lifted. That is the entire situation in one paragraph: blocked today, revivable tomorrow, and therefore something you monitor rather than pay.

The confusion is understandable because three different things are routinely mashed together online: the one-time $100,000 proclamation payment, the normal USCIS filing fees every H-1B petition has always carried, and a newer proposed $103,265 cap fee that exists only as a proposal. Only the middle category — standard fees like the I-129 base fee, the ACWIA training fee, the fraud fee and the Asylum Program Fee — is actually due today. Our H-1B fee calculator totals those for your exact petition type and employer size, and keeps the disputed $100,000 as a separate opt-in line so it can never inflate your estimate by accident. For the timing side of your planning, see our H-1B processing time 2026 guide.

What the $100K Fee Actually Is

On September 19, 2025, the President signed Proclamation 10973, "Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers," which took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on September 21, 2025. Its core mechanism was simple and unprecedented: entry into the United States as an H-1B specialty-occupation worker would be restricted unless the petition was accompanied or supplemented by a $100,000 payment, with a narrow national-interest exception left to the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security. USCIS, Customs and Border Protection and the State Department then issued implementing guidance — updated fee schedules, FAQs, consular instructions and a dedicated payment website — that converted the proclamation's entry restriction into a concrete demand: no $100,000 receipt, no petition approval, no visa, no admission. The White House pitched it as an incremental first step toward H-1B reform aimed at abuses of the program, and it applied to the 2026 lottery cycle and every new petition filed after the effective date.

A year later the policy was extended rather than retired. On September 18, 2026, the President signed Proclamation 11069 continuing the restriction for another twelve months, through September 21, 2027, on the stated ground that the original measure had proven "highly effective" and that the underlying conditions persisted. The extension was published in the Federal Register on September 23, 2026, and it reused the same statutory authority — sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act — and the same $100,000 figure. One disclosure from the litigation hints at just how effective the deterrent was: by late February 2026 the government revealed that only about seventy employers had actually paid the $100,000 since its imposition, a number the challengers cited as proof the payment had functionally halted lawful H-1B hiring rather than raised revenue. Whether you view that as success or damage depends on your vantage point, but it explains why universities, hospitals, schools and religious organizations — employers that sponsor H-1B workers on thin margins — led the court challenges.

Who It Would Hit (and Who It Would Not)

If collection resumes, the payment would land on a specific slice of cases: new H-1B petitions for workers who are outside the United States and need to enter the country to effectuate the approval. That includes fresh cap-subject lottery petitions for overseas beneficiaries — the classic "new H-1B for someone abroad" case. It was never designed to touch petitions filed before the September 21, 2025 effective date, previously approved petitions, current visa holders traveling and re-entering, or — critically — anyone already inside the United States. USCIS guidance from October 2025 expressly carved out petitions requesting an amendment, change of status or extension of stay for a person inside the country, and the White House confirmed the proclamation changes nothing about renewal payments. So same-employer extensions, amendments and change-of-status cases for people already here sit outside the stated scope, as do change-of-employer petitions for workers already in the US in valid status.

Two further boundaries matter for budgeting. First, the cost falls on the petitioning employer, never the worker — the proclamation speaks of employer payment and verification at the petition stage, and the surrounding H-1B regime already forbids shifting employer-side fees onto beneficiaries or letting cost-shifting push wages below required levels. Second, a national-interest waiver exists on paper for individuals, companies or entire industries, but it is pure secretarial discretion with no published standards and, as of mid-2026 reporting, no clear record of any waiver ever being granted — so no employer should budget on the assumption of getting one. If you are unsure which bucket your case falls into, start with our H-1B visa guide for the petition-type basics and check whether a different route fits via our visa eligibility checker.

Timeline of Events

The story moves fast, so here is every load-bearing date in one place, verified against primary sources on October 7, 2026. Keep this table bookmarked: any future change to your obligations will arrive as a new row here — a stay, a merits ruling or a Federal Register notice — not as a rumor on social media.

The Two Court Orders, Explained

The Massachusetts ruling came first and hit hardest on substance. In State of California v. Mullin, twenty states argued the payment was devastating their public universities, schools, research programs and health systems. Judge Sorokin agreed on multiple independent grounds: the $100,000 functions as a tax — designed to raise revenue and deter conduct, not to cover processing costs — and the Constitution gives the taxing power to Congress, not the President; the Immigration and Nationality Act grants no such levy authority; and the policy failed administrative-law requirements. The remedy matched the reasoning: full vacatur, nationwide, for every employer, not just the plaintiff states. The government appealed to the First Circuit and sought an emergency stay that would have revived collection during the appeal; on July 24, 2026, the First Circuit refused, holding the government had not made a strong showing of likely success on the merits. The merits appeal continues, and note the split: a D.C. federal judge in the Chamber of Commerce case read the President's immigration authority as broad enough to include the payment, a decision now before the D.C. Circuit. Two circuits could plausibly disagree before this ends.

The California order of September 30, 2026 added a second padlock on a different theory. In Global Nurse Force v. Trump, Judge Gilliam did not need to reach the tax question: he held the agencies likely skipped legally required steps — notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act and small-entity analyses under the Regulatory Flexibility Act — then vacated the implementing policies and enjoined DHS, USCIS and the State Department from enforcing them until those steps are completed. Three features make this order especially important. First, it expressly reaches the September 2026 extension, closing the argument that Proclamation 11069 somehow outflanked the earlier vacatur. Second, it is framed as vacatur-plus-injunction, so it both erases the policies and affirmatively bars enforcement. Third, it draws the line courts keep drawing: the proclamations themselves are not enjoined, only the agency machinery built on them — which is precisely why collection cannot resume by memo alone, but could resume if the orders fall. For the broader 2026 immigration landscape around this fight, see our US immigration changes 2026 roundup and the live USCIS processing times tracker.

USCIS Position: Why This Is Suspended, Not Dead

Do not mistake a vacatur for a repeal. USCIS's own fee-schedule alert tells you exactly where the agency stands: it "strongly disagrees" with the Massachusetts order, complied only after losing the stay fight, and states that "[i]f this order is later lifted, DHS still plans to collect the payment." That sentence is the reason every section of this page pairs "do not pay now" with "confirm at filing." A court order blocking collection is a shield that lasts exactly as long as the order lasts; appellate courts lift such shields routinely, sometimes with days of warning. Practically, this means an employer that deletes the $100,000 from its hiring budget permanently is making the same mistake as an employer that pays it today — both treat a fluid litigation status as a final answer. The durable posture is conditional: no payment with today's filing, counsel's written confirmation of the status on filing day, and a hiring plan that survives either outcome.

The Separate $103,265 Proposal

Running on a parallel track is a formally proposed — but not final — $103,265 fee for every H-1B cap-subject petition, including advanced-degree-exemption cases, payable at filing on top of all other fees. DHS unveiled it on August 24, 2026 and published the notice of proposed rulemaking the next day, justifying it as cost recovery for the government-wide immigration system: adjudication, fraud detection and vetting, systems modernization, records operations, immigration courts, consular processing, labor enforcement and interagency coordination. The headline math is striking — roughly $8.8 billion a year from a projected 85,000 petitions — and the design differs from the proclamation payment in two ways employers must grasp. First, it is cap-subject only, so universities, affiliated nonprofit research organizations and governmental research organizations — the classic cap-exempt petitioners — would owe nothing under it as proposed. Second, DHS states explicitly that a petitioner subject to both the proclamation payment and this new fee would pay both, a potential combined surcharge north of $200,000 per petition before standard fees. The comment period closed September 24, 2026 with about 11,700 comments submitted; no final rule has issued, so it creates zero obligations today. Watch the Federal Register, not the headlines, for the final rule — and note that a final rule, unlike a proclamation memo, would arrive through the very notice-and-comment process the California court said was missing last time.

Practical Decision Framework

If you are an employer or worker with a petition on the horizon, run this four-step playbook. Step one: pay only what is actually due today — the standard USCIS fees for your petition type — and do not attach any $100,000 payment; there is currently no lawful collection mechanism, and an unsolicited six-figure payment invites its own complications. Step two: make status verification a filing-day ritual, not a one-time Google search — have counsel confirm in writing, the day the petition goes out, that no stay, merits ruling or interim rule has revived collection, and keep that confirmation with the filing records alongside the fee schedule in effect that day. Step three: watch exactly three things and ignore the noise — the First Circuit merits appeal of the Massachusetts vacatur, any appeal of the September 30 California order, and the Federal Register for a final $103,265 rule or any new notice-and-comment rulemaking on the $100,000 payment. Step four: calendar the next known milestone, the October 27, 2026 case-management conference in the California case (statements due October 20), as the earliest date new public information is likely to emerge. Budget both scenarios now so that either outcome — permanent vacatur or sudden revival — is a plan executing, not a crisis improvising. That is the whole game until the courts or a final rule say otherwise.

How We Fact-Checked This Page

Every load-bearing claim above was verified on October 7, 2026 against primary or direct-reporting sources: the White House proclamations and H-1B FAQ (Proclamation 10973 of September 19, 2025, effective September 21, 2025; Proclamation 11069 of September 18, 2026, Federal Register September 23, 2026); the District of Massachusetts memorandum and order of June 8, 2026 in California v. Mullin, 1:25-cv-13829, and the First Circuit's July 24, 2026 stay denial; September–October 2026 legal reporting on the September 30, 2026 Northern District of California order in Global Nurse Force v. Trump, 4:25-cv-08454, including the October 27, 2026 conference date from the docket; the USCIS fee-schedule alert stating collection will resume if the orders lift; the DHS proposal release of August 24, 2026 and Federal Register notice of August 25, 2026 for the $103,265 cap fee with its September 24, 2026 comment deadline; and university and law-firm summaries of the USCIS scope guidance. Courts and agencies can act at any time — always confirm the current status on uscis.gov and with immigration counsel before paying or filing.

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