Analysis: Tata, Infosys, and Cognizant are set to bear the brunt of Trump's $100K H-1B fee; from 2020 to 2024, 93% of Infosys' H-1B hires would have had to pay
Context & Ripple Effects
The proposed annual H-1B charge had already raised broad concerns about the cost of sponsoring overseas talent, particularly for smaller companies. Startup warnings about disproportionate sponsorship costs framed the policy as a barrier that larger employers may be better equipped to absorb.
This analysis narrows that debate to IT-services firms with H-1B-dependent hiring models. It also reinforces the earlier expectation that the policy could redirect work rather than simply reduce demand for it, through a shift of engineering work to offshore delivery hubs.
First-order effects
- Tata, Infosys, and Cognizant face the most immediate increase in the cost of affected U.S. H-1B hiring; Infosys is especially exposed because 93% of its 2020–24 H-1B hires would have fallen within the fee’s scope.
- The firms must reassess whether U.S.-based placement of new H-1B hires remains economical, changing staffing decisions for client delivery teams now reliant on that pipeline.
Second-order effects
- Clients of these IT-services providers could see more work performed from non-U.S. locations as suppliers redesign delivery models to avoid the added visa cost, consistent with earlier offshoring expectations.
- The fee would sharpen the cost gap between firms with established global delivery capacity and smaller employers for whom sponsorship costs are harder to absorb.
Third-order effects
- If sustained, the policy could accelerate a structural move away from visa-enabled onsite staffing toward distributed delivery, altering how U.S. enterprises source technical labor.
- It may also concentrate cross-border talent access among companies with the scale to reorganize hiring and delivery operations, rather than eliminating the underlying demand for skilled workers.
The trend: The H-1B fee debate is becoming a test of whether immigration costs shift tech work offshore and favor employers with the most flexible global staffing models.