The H-1B $100,000 Fee Is Blocked — Why That Still Doesn’t Open a Door This Year

The $100,000 charge that froze American hiring of foreign professionals for ten months is, for now, off the books. A federal appeals court refused on 24 July 2026 to revive it while the government appeals, which means US Citizenship and Immigration Services cannot collect it on new H-1B petitions.

If you are reading that from Lahore, Lagos, Manila or Hyderabad and wondering whether the road just reopened, here is the part the legal briefings leave out: the fee was never charged to you, and its removal does not create a single extra H-1B slot this year. The quota for the current cycle closed a week before the court order, and there is no second lottery.

Here is the accurate status, what it changes, and what it does not.

Is the H-1B $100,000 fee still in effect?

No. As of 24 July 2026, the $100,000 H-1B fee is not enforceable. A Massachusetts federal court struck it down on 8 June 2026 as an unlawful tax, and the First Circuit Court of Appeals refused to pause that ruling while the government appeals. USCIS cannot assess the charge. The underlying appeal is still live.

Status verified against court filings and USCIS guidance as of 1 August 2026. This is fast-moving litigation — check the primary sources before acting on it.

How the fee appeared, and how it fell

The charge came from a presidential proclamation signed on 19 September 2025 and applying from 21 September. It required a $100,000 payment on certain new H-1B petitions — a figure with no precedent in the programme’s history, and one that turned a routine international hire into a six-figure decision.

The legal challenge, brought by a coalition of states, reached judgment on 8 June 2026, when Judge Leo Sorokin of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the policy in its entirety. The reasoning was structural rather than political: a payment of that size functions as a tax, and the power to impose taxes belongs to Congress, not the executive. The court also found the administration had not satisfied the Administrative Procedure Act.

What followed was six weeks of whiplash. On 12 June the same court issued an administrative stay pending appellate review, so USCIS carried on collecting. On 18 June the government formally asked the First Circuit to keep the fee alive for the duration of the appeal. On 24 July 2026 the First Circuit denied that request, finding the government had not shown it was likely to win. With the stay refused, the vacatur took effect nationwide and collection stopped.

Two things follow from that, and both matter.

First, this is an interim result, not a final one. The First Circuit ruled only on whether to pause the lower court’s judgment; it has not decided the appeal itself. The government can pursue the merits and, if it loses, can ask the Supreme Court to step in. Other federal courts hearing parallel challenges have not all reached the same conclusion.

Second, the proclamation has an expiry date built into it. Under its own terms the restriction lapses roughly twelve months after 21 September 2025 — so around 21 September 2026 — unless it is extended or replaced by a formal regulation. Watch that date. A properly issued rule would be harder to challenge than a proclamation was.

Who the fee ever applied to (this is the part most people get wrong)

The fee was paid by the employer, not the worker, and it did not apply to every H-1B petition. Under USCIS guidance it applied to new petitions for beneficiaries who would be approved through consular processing — that is, people outside the United States.

It generally did not apply to:

• extensions of an existing H-1B
• amended petitions
• change-of-employer petitions
• change-of-status requests for people already physically in the US

So if you are on OPT in Texas moving to H-1B status, or a current H-1B holder switching employers, the fee was almost certainly never in your file. If you were abroad waiting on a consular appointment while a sponsor decided whether a six-figure line item was worth it — you are the person this ruling actually helps.

No refund mechanism has been announced for employers who paid while the fee was enforceable, and the court did not decide that question.

The bigger obstacle nobody is writing about: the FY2027 cap is closed

On 17 July 2026, one week before the appeals court order, USCIS announced it had received enough petitions to fill both the regular cap of 65,000 and the additional 20,000 reserved for holders of a US master’s degree or higher. All 85,000 slots are gone. There will be no second lottery for FY2027.

That is unusually final. In the previous cycle USCIS ran an additional selection round because not enough selected registrants filed. This year it did not need to. Every registration not picked in the March selection is now simply Not Selected.

The season ran on the standard calendar: registration opened 4 March 2026 and closed 19 March; USCIS announced selections on 31 March; petitions were filed between 1 April and 30 June. Workers approved under this cap can begin employment from 1 October 2026.

So the honest sequence for a candidate abroad in August 2026 is: the fee is blocked, the quota is full, and the next registration window opens in March 2027 for FY2028.

The rule change that now matters more than the fee

FY2027 was the first cap season run under a wage-weighted selection process instead of a straight random lottery. The final rule took effect on 27 February 2026, and it gives registrations tied to higher offered wage levels a greater chance of being picked.

The effect on the applicant pool was immediate. USCIS reported 211,600 valid registrations for FY2027 — down roughly 38.5% from the 343,981 filed the year before. Some of that drop is the fee scaring employers off. Some of it is the end of speculative multi-employer registrations. And some of it is entry-level candidates and their sponsors correctly reading the new odds.

That is the strategic point worth absorbing. The $100,000 fee was a temporary executive action and the courts have now suspended it. The wage-weighted selection rule is a regulation, it survived the cycle, and it structurally disadvantages candidates at the bottom of the wage scale — graduates, career-changers, first-role hires. If your plan depends on winning a March lottery on an entry-level salary, the fee was never your real problem.

What to actually do between now and March 2027

If you are outside the US with no sponsor yet. Your task is not the visa, it is the offer. Employers who shelved international hiring last autumn are re-opening those requisitions now that the six-figure charge is blocked. Target roles where your specialty is genuinely scarce, and be explicit in your application that you are cap-subject and would need a March 2027 registration — sponsors plan that timeline in Q4.

If you are on F-1 or OPT inside the US. You were largely outside the fee’s scope, and you remain the most advantaged group in the system: change of status, no consular queue, plus the master’s cap if you hold a US postgraduate degree. Keep your status clean and your I-983 or equivalent current.

If you were selected for FY2027. Nothing here disturbs your petition. Approved beneficiaries can start from 1 October 2026.

If you were not selected. There is no second draw. The realistic alternatives are cap-exempt employment, another visa category, or another country. Cap-exempt H-1B employment is the most under-used route in the entire programme: higher education institutions, affiliated non-profits, non-profit research organisations and government research organisations can file H-1B petitions at any time of year, with no lottery at all. A university hospital, a research institute or an affiliated non-profit is not a consolation prize — it is a legitimate H-1B without a March gamble.

If you are comparing countries. The US is not the only route with a September or March clock. Germany’s Opportunity Card allows entry to job-hunt without an offer, and Australia and the UK both run sponsor-based systems with no annual lottery — different trade-offs, but no 85,000-person ceiling.

Two dates to keep on your calendar

• Around 21 September 2026 — the proclamation lapses on its own terms unless extended or replaced by a regulation. If the administration issues a rule instead, expect a fresh legal fight and a more durable restriction.
• March 2027 — the FY2028 registration window. Registration carries a $215 fee per beneficiary, paid by the employer through a USCIS online account.

Key Takeaways

• The H-1B $100,000 fee is not enforceable as of 24 July 2026, after the First Circuit refused to pause the 8 June ruling that struck it down.
• The case is not over — the merits appeal continues and the Supreme Court could yet be asked to intervene.
• The fee was employer-paid and applied only to new petitions processed at a consulate abroad. Extensions, amendments, employer changes and in-country status changes were exempt.
• The FY2027 cap closed on 17 July 2026 with no second lottery. All 85,000 slots are filled.
• 211,600 registrations were filed for FY2027, down about 38.5% year on year, in the first season run on wage-weighted selection.
• The next registration window is March 2027; approved FY2027 workers start from 1 October 2026.
• Cap-exempt employers — universities, affiliated non-profits, non-profit and government research organisations — can sponsor H-1B workers year-round with no lottery.

FAQ