TCS secured second-highest H-1B visa approvals in 2025. The first was…

Amazon hires the most number of foreign workers, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Microsoft, Meta and Apple, according to federal data.

Trump administration issued an order to impose heavy annual fee on H1B visas to “check the systemic abuse” of the programme. (Bloomberg)

As of June 2025, Amazon had 10,044 workers on H-1B visas, TCS with 5,505 H-1Bs, (5189), Meta (5123), Apple (4202), Google (4181), Deloitte (2353), Infosys (2004), Wipro (1523) and Tech Mahindra Americas (951).

In July, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), had said that it has received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 H-1B visa regular cap and the 20,000 H-1B visa US advanced degree exemption, known as the master’s cap, for fiscal year 2026, PTI reported.

The Trump administration announced to impose a whooping annual fee of $100,000 on H-1B visas to “check the systemic abuse” of the programme.” The move is likely to impact the Indian workers in the US who constitute nearly 70% of the H1-B visa holders.

Titled “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers,” the proclamation mandates that H-1B petitions must be accompanied by the $100,000 payment to be considered valid. Petitions not meeting this requirement will be denied, and workers associated with the sponsor companies will be barred from entering the US.

The new visa fees of $100,000 announced by Trump is more than the median annual salary of a fresh H1B visa holder and more than 80% of the average annual salary of all H1B visa holders.

The proclamation said that the number of foreign STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workers in the United States has increased from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million between 2000 to 2019. The overall STEM employment has only increased 44.5 per cent during that time, it said.

The share of foreign workforce increased from 17.7% in 2000 to 26.1% in in 2019 in computer and math occupations. The proclamation said the the key facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labour has been the “abuse of the H-1B visa”, terming it a national security threat.

“The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was created to bring temporary workers into the United States to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labour [sic],” Trump said in the proclamation.

The proclamation added that Information technology firms have “prominently manipulated” the H-1B system, significantly harming American workers in computer-related fields. Terming the non-immigrant workers as “aliens”, a section of the proclamation also lists an exception to the new H-1B visa restrictions and $100,000 fee requirement. It allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to exempt certain individuals, companies, or entire industries from the rule if it is determined to be in the national interest and does not pose a threat to US security or welfare.

The share of IT workers in the H-1B programme reportedly grew from 32 per cent in Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 to an average of over 65 per cent in the last 5 fiscal years. In addition, some of the most prolific H-1B employers are now consistently IT outsourcing companies.