The $100,000 H-1B Fee Is Blocked Again — What That Means If You’re Being Sponsored From Outside the US

On Friday 24 July 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit refused to revive the $100,000 H-1B fee while the government’s appeal goes ahead. That leaves a June district court ruling in place — the one that struck the fee down as an unlawful tax — and it means the payment is not being collected right now.

If you are outside the US waiting on a sponsored H-1B, this is the most consequential eight-figure sentence you will read this month. It is also not the end of the story, and treating it as settled is the mistake to avoid.

Where things stand: The H-1B $100,000 fee is currently blocked. A Massachusetts district court vacated it on 8 June 2026, and on 24 July 2026 the First Circuit declined to pause that ruling while the appeal proceeds. USCIS is not collecting the payment for now, but the appeal is unresolved and the position could change again.

How we got here: the short timeline

Date	What happened
19 September 2025	President Trump signs Proclamation 10973, imposing a $100,000 payment tied to certain new H-1B petitions
21 September 2025	The fee takes effect for petitions filed from 12:01 a.m. ET that day
October 2025 onwards	USCIS and other agencies issue guidance narrowing the scope to petitions requiring consular processing
12 December 2025	Twenty state attorneys general, led by California, sue to block the policy
8 June 2026	Judge Leo Sorokin of the District of Massachusetts vacates the policy, holding the payment is effectively a tax that only Congress may impose, and that its implementation breached federal administrative law
11–12 June 2026	The government appeals and the district court briefly stays its own order, putting the fee back in force
18 June 2026	The government asks the First Circuit for a stay lasting the length of the appeal
24 July 2026	The First Circuit denies that motion. The fee stays vacated pending a decision on the merits

Separate challenges are also live elsewhere in the federal system, including in California and before the DC Circuit, and several immigration practices expect the dispute to end up at the Supreme Court. Nothing about the current position is guaranteed to hold.

Who the fee ever applied to — and who it never touched

This is where most of the panic came from, and it is worth being precise, because the scope was narrower than the headlines suggested.

According to the agency guidance issued after the proclamation, the payment applied to new H-1B petitions for beneficiaries who were outside the US and needed the visa issued through a consulate — in the guidance’s language, petitions filed for or only approvable through consular notification.

It did not apply to:

• Petitions filed as a change of status for someone already lawfully inside the US, such as a student moving from F-1 to H-1B
• Extensions of stay for workers already in H-1B status
• Amendments, including many worksite changes
• Existing H-1B holders travelling abroad and re-entering on a valid visa, or applying for a visa based on an already-approved change-of-status or extension petition

The White House also said the payment was a one-time charge rather than an annual tax, and that a waiver was possible case by case where DHS considered it in the national interest.

Read that list again if you are an international student in the US. The single largest group of H-1B beneficiaries — people converting from F-1 or OPT inside the country — was outside the fee’s scope even when it was being collected. The group squarely inside its scope was people being hired from abroad. That is exactly the group most readers of this site belong to.

What “vacated pending appeal” actually means for you

Three practical readings, and none of them is “the fee is gone.”

If a petition is being filed for you now, the payment is not currently being required. That is a real cost difference for the employer, and for borderline hiring decisions it may be the difference between an offer and a shrug.

If an employer told you in the last ten months that sponsoring you was financially impossible, the arithmetic they were working from has changed twice since June. It is reasonable to go back and ask. Politely, once, with the current status attached.

If you are planning around March 2027, plan for uncertainty rather than for either outcome. The appeal is on the merits now, other cases are running in parallel, and the position could flip on a single order — as it already has, twice, in seven weeks.

One more thing, and it matters: this fee was always an employer-side payment. US immigration rules restrict passing required petition costs to the worker. If any recruiter, agent or “consultant” tells you that you need to pay a six-figure H-1B fee, or offers to arrange a discount on one, that is not a visa process — treat it as a scam and walk away.

The other half of the story: the FY2027 cap is already closed

While the fee litigation was moving, the FY2027 H-1B season quietly ended.

USCIS announced on 17 July 2026 that it had received enough petitions to fill both the 65,000 regular cap and the 20,000 advanced degree exemption — the master’s cap — for fiscal year 2027. Because both allocations were met, there will be no second lottery round this year. Registrations that were not picked in the March 2026 draw are being marked “Not Selected,” and they cannot support a petition for FY2027.

The next opportunity under the cap is the registration window expected in March 2027, for FY2028, with employment starting around 1 October 2027.

So if you were not selected, nothing you do in the next few months changes this cycle. What you do between now and March 2027 changes the next one.

The lottery is no longer a coin flip

This is the part that gets missed, and it is more important to your odds than the fee ever was.

FY2027 was the first season run under DHS’s weighted selection rule, effective 27 February 2026. Instead of one equal entry per registered candidate, each registration now receives entries based on how the offered salary maps to the Department of Labor’s four OEWS wage levels for that occupation and location:

• Wage Level I — one entry
• Wage Level II — two entries
• Wage Level III — three entries
• Wage Level IV — four entries

Selection is still random. The rule does not rank candidates and does not guarantee anyone a place. What it changes is how many tickets you hold. In its own published analysis, DHS estimated that selection chances would rise to over 61% for a Level IV registration and over 45% for Level III.

The first results are consistent with the design. USCIS reported roughly 211,600 registrations for FY2027, down about 38.5% from 343,981 the year before. Of the beneficiaries selected, 71.5% held US advanced degrees, up from 57% in FY2026, and only 17.7% of selected registrations sat in the lowest wage band.

Read plainly: the entry-level, lowest-wage sponsorship route into the US just got much narrower, and a US master’s plus a higher salary band got much more valuable.

What to do between now and March 2027

If the US is your target, the next eight months are the work.

Aim at the wage level, not just the job. The number that decides your odds is where your offered salary sits against the prevailing wage for that occupation code and that metro area. Two identical job titles in different cities can land in different bands. When you negotiate, you are negotiating your lottery entries.

Understand your own registration. Ask a sponsoring employer which SOC code, work location and wage level they intend to register you under. Those details have to stay consistent from registration through to the petition, so vague answers now become problems later.

Check the cap-exempt route. Universities and their affiliated non-profits, plus certain non-profit and government research organisations, are exempt from the annual cap and can file H-1B petitions year-round. No lottery, no March window. It is competitive and often lower-paid than industry, and for many people it is still the most realistic H-1B in existence.

Keep a second country in play. This is not defeatism, it is arithmetic. Even at the top wage band, the H-1B is a probability, not a plan. The UK Skilled Worker route, Germany’s Opportunity Card and Australia’s Skills in Demand visa all run on published criteria rather than a draw.

Watch the right things, ignore the noise. Three signals actually matter over the next eight months: the First Circuit’s decision on the merits of the fee appeal, whether any further order changes collection in the meantime, and the USCIS announcement of the FY2028 registration dates. Under its updated regulations, USCIS has committed to announcing the registration period at least 30 days in advance.

Key Takeaways

• The H-1B $100,000 fee is currently blocked. It was vacated on 8 June 2026, and on 24 July 2026 the First Circuit refused to reinstate it during the appeal.
• The fee only ever applied to new petitions for beneficiaries outside the US needing consular processing — not to change of status, extensions or amendments inside the country.
• The status is not final. The merits appeal is pending, parallel cases are running, and the position has already reversed twice since June.
• The FY2027 cap is closed and there will be no second lottery. The next registration window is expected in March 2027 for FY2028.
• The lottery is now wage-weighted: Levels I to IV get one to four entries, and DHS projected selection odds above 61% at Level IV and above 45% at Level III.
• FY2027 registrations fell about 38.5% to roughly 211,600, while 71.5% of selected beneficiaries held US advanced degrees — the low-wage entry route has narrowed sharply.
• Nobody should ask you to pay a six-figure petition fee. That is a scam signal, not a visa step.

Sources: USCIS announcements and guidance; the 8 June 2026 order in the District of Massachusetts and the First Circuit’s 24 July 2026 order in State of California v. Mullin; DHS’s weighted selection final rule published in the Federal Register on 29 December 2025; reporting by Business Standard and JURIST.

VisaRiz is an information site, not a law firm, and this article is not legal advice. Immigration positions in this case have changed within days. Confirm current status on uscis.gov or with a licensed immigration attorney before making any decision.

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