Sources: Amazon, Google, and others plan to skirt Trump's $100K H-1B fee by finding workers in categories that don't include the fee, like existing H-1B holders
Some giant firms are discussing ways to avoid paying, while smaller ones have fewer options — WASHINGTON—The world's biggest …
Context & Ripple Effects
The fee’s scope was narrowed earlier: renewals and re-entering existing H-1B holders were excluded, concentrating its impact on future lottery applicants. That makes worker-category selection a practical lever rather than a marginal compliance detail.
Amazon and Google are especially consequential test cases because Amazon led H-1B visa recipients from 2020 through 2024 and several large technology peers also ranked near the top. Their response shows how scale and an existing sponsored-worker base can soften a policy’s intended cost.
First-order effects
- Large employers can prioritize exempt existing H-1B holders and renewals, reducing their exposure to the fee on new sponsorships.
- Smaller companies with thinner pools of already authorized candidates face less flexibility, making new H-1B hiring relatively more costly.
Second-order effects
- Recruiting competition may intensify for workers who already hold H-1B status or can qualify through exempt pathways, shifting bargaining power toward that group.
- The gap between large employers and smaller sponsors could widen; firms already identified as heavily exposed, including major IT-services providers, have less room to rely on the same workforce mix.
Third-order effects
- If this approach becomes standard, immigration-policy costs may reshape hiring through worker-status arbitrage rather than uniformly reducing demand for foreign talent.
- The policy could reinforce a two-track labor market: established employers staffing from existing US-based visa holders, while work tied to new hires is more likely to be placed outside the US, as earlier coverage flagged as an offshoring risk.
The trend: The H-1B fee is becoming a test of whether immigration restrictions change total talent demand or primarily reward employers with scale, incumbent visa populations, and global delivery options.