Employers Paid $5 Billion in H-1B Visa Fees Since 1999

Employers spend a huge amount of money to sponsor high-skilled foreign nationals on H-1B visas. They have paid nearly $5 billion in mandated H-1B fees which fund scholarships for U.S. students and training for U.S workers initially. And it is said that the cost will continue to rise!

Attorney costs and government fees range from $3,400 up to $16,560 for an initial H-1B petition and for initial H-1B petition and an extension, it costs from $6,300 to $28,620.

As H-1B processing takes 10 to 12 months, most of the employers prefer to pay premium processing fee of $1410 which ensures a USCIS decision within 15 days.

Employers should also pay scholarship and training fee of $1,500 and $500 as a fraud prevention and detection fee.

The Trump administration’s FY 2020 budget proposes doubling the $1,500 scholarship and training fee to $3,000 but there will be no increase in the annual limit of H-1B visas.

When companies recruit on U.S. university campuses, they find only 20% of the full-time graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering are U.S. students. International students are the majority of full-time graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering at about 90% of U.S. universities.

The research also shows the increasing importance of immigrants in cutting-edge companies. A new report also says that reducing the ability of U.S. employers to hire foreign-born professionals wouldn’t help in creating more jobs for native-born U.S. workers.

Critics call H-1B visa holders as cheap labor while the legal and government fees for employers is now $16,560 per H-1B petition. It is hard to believe the “cheap” price has turned “too costly”.