By Aditya Soni, Kristina Cooke and Nandita Bose

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration said on Friday it would ask companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B worker visas, potentially dealing a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China.

Since taking office in January, Trump has kicked off a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, including moves to limit some forms of legal immigration. The move to reshape the H-1B visa program represents his administration's most high-profile effort so far to rework temporary employment visas.

"A hundred thousand dollars a year for H1-B visas, and all of the big companies are on board. We've spoken to them," U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday.

"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," he said.

TECH INDUSTRY VS TRUMP

Trump's threat to crack down on H1-B visas has become a major flashpoint with the tech industry, which contributed millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.

Critics of the program, including many U.S. technology workers, argue that it allows firms to suppress wages and sideline Americans who could do the jobs. Supporters, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, say it brings in highly skilled workers essential to filling talent gaps and keeping firms competitive. Musk, himself a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa.

Adding new fees "creates disincentive to attract the world's smartest talent to the U.S.," said Deedy Das, partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, on X. "If the U.S. ceases to attract the best talent, it drastically reduces its ability to innovate and grow the economy."

The new fee could significantly push up costs for companies, particularly smaller tech firms and start-ups.

INDIA ACCOUNTS FOR MOST H-1B VISAS

Roughly two-thirds of jobs secured through the H1-B program are computer-related, government figures show, but employers also use the visa to bring in engineers, educators and healthcare workers.

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 ( AMZN ) had more than 10,000 H-1B visas approved, while Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Meta Platforms ( META ) had over 5,000 H-1B visa approvals each.

Shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp ( CTSH ), an IT services company that relies extensively on H-1B visa holders, as well as U.S.-listed shares of Indian tech firms Infosys and Wipro closed between 2% and 5% lower.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) declined comment. Other big tech firms, banks and consulting firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Indian embassy in Washington and the Chinese Consulate General in New York also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters was not immediately able to establish details of how the fee would be administered. 

IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

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.

Under the current system, H-1B applicants pay a small fee to enter a lottery and, if selected, subsequent fees that can amount to several thousand dollars, depending on the case. 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.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council, questioned the legality of the proposed new fees. "Congress has only authorized the government to set fees to recover the cost of adjudicating an application," he said on Bluesky.

The move is the latest effort by the Trump administration to curb or raise more money from legal migration. Last month, the U.S. launched a pilot program allowing consular officers to demand bonds of up to $15,000 for tourist and business visas from countries with high overstay rates or limited vetting data.

That followed Trump's June travel ban restricting entry from 19 nations.

Trump's first-term administration issued several regulations that aimed to limit access to H1-B visas and give them to higher-paying employers, but the regulations were blocked in federal court.