New York: Trump’s decision to hike fee for H-1B visas to a staggering $100,000 annually has left the major tech giants, including Microsoft in shock. Some companies including Meta and Amazon have asked its employees to return to the US as the revised fee will come into force from Sunday.

Reuters reported that Microsoft, JPMorgan and Amazon responded to the announcement by advising employees holding H-1B visas to remain in the United States. They advised employees on the H-1B visas who were outside the US to return before midnight on Saturday (0400 GMT on Sunday), when the new fee structures are set to take effect.

"H-1B visa holders who are currently in the US should remain in the U.S. and avoid international travel until the government issues clear travel guidance," read an email sent to JPMorgan employees by Ogletree Deakins, a company that handles visa applications for the US investment bank.

The H-1B program offers 65,000 visas annually to employers bringing in temporary foreign workers in specialized fields, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees.

Nearly all the visa fees have to be paid by the employers. The H-1B visas are approved for a period of three to six years.

The Trump administration said that the $100,000 fee is aimed at ensuring that the people being brought into the country are “actually very highly skilled” and do not replace American workers.

The move is aimed at protecting American workers while ensuring that companies have a pathway to hire “truly extraordinary people” and bring them to the United States. Companies pay to sponsor H1B applicants.

The fee hike will significantly impact Indian technology workers who are hired by tech companies and others on H1-B visas. The visas are valid for three years and can be renewed for another three years.

If a company sponsors an employee for the Green Card, the visas can be renewed till the permanent residency comes through. However, Indians on work visas in the US are caught in a decades-long wait for Green Cards and the new move could have an impact on whether they can continue to stay in the US if their companies decide not to pay the USD 100,000 fee annually now required to retain the visas.

"So the whole idea is, no more will these big tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government USD 100,000, then they have to pay the employee. So it's just not economic. If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land, train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That's the policy here. And all of the big companies are on board. We've spoken to them about,” said US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71% of approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7%, according to government data.

In the first half of 2025, Amazon.com and its cloud-computing unit, AWS, had received approval for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Microsoft and Meta Platforms had over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each.