US widens H-1B, L-1 fee to visa extensions, raising costs for Indian IT

Washingtoncrossing,UPDATED: Aug 10, 2026 18:10 IST

The US has published new rules requiring certain large employers to pay a fee of USD 4,000 for H-1B applications and USD 4,500 for L-1 applications when seeking extensions of visas for employees. The change widens the scope of a fee that earlier applied only to initial H-1B and L-1 petitions or when applicants changed jobs.

The Department of Homeland Security said the 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee will take effect from September 9. It will apply to employers with 50 or more employees in the US if more than 50 per cent of them are in H-1B or L-1 non-immigrant status, a category that includes major Indian IT services and consulting providers that use a blended onshore-offshore staffing model.

The rule is expected to raise immigration sponsorship costs for technology companies, global consulting firms, IT services providers, multinational employers and other organisations with large numbers of H-1B and L-1 employees. Organisations filing routine extension requests for the same employee will now face additional filing costs that may not have applied earlier.

DHS has clarified that amended petitions that do not seek an extension of status will remain exempt from the expanded fee requirement. The department estimates that extending the USD 4,000 to USD 4,500 fee to every extension petition will generate about USD 157.3 million each year.

According to DHS, the revenue is set aside by law to fund the US Customs and Border Protection Air and Sea Biometric Entry-Exit System, an automated biometric tracking framework prioritised under national security directives. Congress created the fee in December 2015 as a successor to an earlier supplemental fee, with the money meant to support biometric entry-exit programmes mandated for national security purposes.

For IT services firms managing several thousand onshore Indian engineers on active H-1B or L-1 status, the rule turns what was an intermittent expense into an annual multi-million-dollar operational cost, while extending the fee to routine visa renewals from September 9.

With PTI Inputs

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