Previous Infosys CFO and market veteran Mohandas Pai on Saturday stated the United States transfer to enforce a high $100,000 yearly charge on H-1B visa candidates will moisten fresh applications by business and might speed up offshoring in coming months.
United States President Donald Trump has actually signed a pronouncement that will enforce $100,000 yearly visa charge for extremely knowledgeable employees. The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was developed to bring momentary employees into the United States to carry out additive, high-skilled functions, however it has actually been intentionally made use of to change, instead of supplement, American employees with lower-paid, lower-skilled labour, Trump stated in the pronouncement.
Dismissing the idea that business utilize H-1B visas to send out inexpensive labour to the United States, Pai explained that the typical income paid by the leading 20 H-1B companies surpasses $100,000, and criticised what he called as lost “rhetoric carrying on.”
An IT market professional who did not want to be called stated that the fresh approvals for Indian tech business varies from 8,000-12,000 every year. The effect is not simply on Indian business however likewise on international tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft who represent substantial H-1B numbers to get “the best talent” to the United States. The cost of $100,000 is method expensive, the source stated.
Pai pointed out that the effect will be “limited” in the meantime, as it just impacts brand-new applications, and existing H-1B visas are “safe.”
“It has got limited application, because…it doesn’t apply to all the H-1B visas which are already there. So there could be only impact for anybody applying in future, new applications will come down. Nobody’s going to pay $100,000, that is very true,” Pai informed PTI.
He argued that as such H-1B salaries are “not cheap.”
“People pay more than $100,000 as salaries, they’re not cheap. If they pay their staff $100,000 they charge their clients $150,000-160,000 so all this idea of sending cheap, low-skilled people, that doesn’t hold water,” Pai stated.
Moving forward, business are most likely to increase offshoring.
“Now what will happen is everybody will work to increase offshoring…because it doesn’t make sense, first, you don’t get talent, second the costs are too high they’ll increase offshore. That will happen over the next maybe six months to one year. So we have to wait and see what happens but right now, for 3-6 months it will not have any big impact,” he stated.
Pai has, in the past, kept that Indian IT companies’ reliance on H-1B visas has actually considerably reduced over a time period, highlighting that information suggests numerous leading American tech business remain in reality amongst the leading candidates for these visas.
A take a look at the USCIS site reveals that for 2025 (information as on June 30, 2025), Amazon topped the list of H-1B visa approvals at 10,044.
Because list of leading 10 recipients, TCS (5,505) is at the 2nd area followed by Microsoft Corp (5,189), Meta (5,123), Apple (4,202), Google (4,181), Cognizant (2,493), JP Morgan Chase (2,440), Walmart (2,390) and Deloitte Consulting (2,353). The leading 20 list consists of Infosys (2,004), LTIMindtree (1,807), and HCL America (1,728).
A market specialist kept in mind that the most recent relocation by the United States would decrease development in the United States.
Congress has actually set a mandated cap of 65,000 H-1B visas with 20,000 extra H-1B visas for specialists who have actually acquired a master’s degree or greater from a recognized United States organization.
According to USCIS site, the H-1B program permits companies in the United States to briefly use foreign employees in professions that need the theoretical and useful application of a body of extremely specialised understanding and a bachelor’s degree or greater in the particular specialized, or its comparable.
Released on September 20, 2025
