Trump’s H-1B visa fees cause confusion and confusion among the Chinese talents in the US

Anger and confusion grabbed Chinese experts in the US after White House leader Donald Trump slapped large fees on a new work visa and deepened anxiety among those trying to build a state career.

Last Friday, the Trump administration said it would ask businesses to pay $100,000 to new H-1B visa applicants. A large number of high-tech companies and banks, including Microsoft, JPMorgan and Amazon, responded to the announcement by advising employees with H-1B visas to stay in the country.

The White House has made it clear that the new rules will only apply to new H-1B applicants to current visa holders or those seeking to renew their permit.

The US government can cash outbreaks from visa fee hikes in the near future, but the new policy will almost certainly prevent Chinese students from pursuing a degree or career in the United States, said Xinbo Wu, director of the Center for American Studies in Shanghai.

India was the biggest beneficiary of the H-1B visa last year, accounting for 71% of approved visa holders, while China is the distant second at 11.7%, according to U.S. Homeland Security Data.

Last year, the most common industry among H-1B workers’ employers was the professional, scientific and technical services sector, of which the largest segment of beneficiaries involved people who provide computer programming services.

Shortly after Trump’s executive order was announced, many Chinese people took him to the social media app Xiaohongshu, where they shared their experiences of hearing news from their employers and returning to the US after receiving recommendations.

Many people had to shorten their vacation plans or cancel their trips entirely.

The woman with the username “Emily of New York” boarded a United Airlines flight from New York to Paris last Friday, saying she was taxiing the runway when the plane received news of a new order. After negotiating with the crew, she said she was able to get off the plane.

She had cancelled the trip and planned to completely scrap the trip before rebooking again, after realising that the new rules would not affect current visa owners.

“It was 48 hours of helplessness and frustration,” she said. “Early moments like this showed how the chaos of the world can always overturn individual lives,” according to a CNBC translation.

CNBC was unable to independently verify her report.

The announcement marked the Trump administration’s most aggressive step in curbing immigration, targeting the influx of talent from China, particularly. Earlier this year, the Trump administration threatened to cancel visas for Chinese students amid the intensity with Beijing before turning restrictions back on as tensions eased.

The number of US Chinese students fell from around 373,000 in 2019 to about 277,000 in 2024 amid rising tensions between the two largest economies in the world.

Sam Lin, founder of Fujian’s visionary education at the institution, said more students are looking at alternative destinations for higher education, such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

“Trump’s instability policies made students and parents more cautious and uneasy when planning their research, but many have noticed that his threat often sounds more dramatic than it actually is,” Lynn said. “These procedures may not be intended to be carried out on the scale proposed by the administration.”

Questions remain about how the new visa fee rules will be implemented.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said on Friday that businesses must pay $100,000 a year to H-1B visa holders, but White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt said in a Saturday post for X that this is not an annual fee, but a one-off payment that applies to each petition.

On Saturday, White House officials revealed that the order only applied to new applicants to existing visa holders and those seeking renewal of permits.

“For those waiting for the first H-1B to be filed, the new fees create a sudden barrier,” said Akshat Divatia, immigration lawyer at Harris Sliwoski, a Seattle-based law firm.

“For businesses, the rule is not a retroactive tax on current H-1B employees, but a pre-paid employment cost for new cap subject employment,” he said, adding that $100,000 fee companies will force them to reconsider “whether each new employment deserves a very sudden and latest investment.”

“For large multinationals, that could mean shifting more offshore jobs or limiting US sponsors to only the most senior or professional roles. For startups and medium-sized companies, the price tag could fully adopt the H-1B, as many of them have already grown to cover legal and filing fees.”

The latest measures also direct U.S. officials to rebuild the lottery system by increasing the general wage level to “upskills” in the program, prioritizing higher pay and higher roles than entry-level positions, and employers “to use the H-1B program for elite narrow bands, high-compensation jobs,” Divatia said.

The latest statement sent shockwaves through some of America’s biggest tech and financial companies over the weekend.

Amazon has hired the largest number of H-1B Visa owners, which have been employed at the end of June. Microsoft, Meta, apple and Google Among the top 10 recipients of the 2025 H-1B permits, there were over 4,000 such visas each.

In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program, IBM vice-president Gary Cohn, who served as director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, said the panic had dissipated over the weekend. He praised the highly talented US talent and ultimately good for the economy.

“People weren’t sure what was going on with their existing H-1B visas, which caused panic over the weekend. They were cleaned over the weekend so there’s no panic in the system at this point,” he said.

“In the end, we’re going to bring highly skilled people to the United States. It will help us grow our economy. That’s good for all of us.”

– CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.