Trump’s $100K H-1B fee has Wall Street weighing new global manpower strategies
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says the surprise change to foreign worker policy “caught everyone off guard,” with implications reverberating out to the tech sector and beyond.
The $100,000 fee suddenly imposed on new H-1B visa petitions by President Donald Trump’s administration has left Wall Street firms scrambling to assess the impact on their workforce and global operations, according to reports.
The fee, which took effect September 21, is part of a broader push to overhaul the H-1B program, a key channel for financial institutions seeking to recruit highly skilled professionals from abroad.
The surprise announcement has set off a wave of confusion across the financial sector, with companies and employees uncertain about the scope and details of the new rules.
“That caught everyone off guard,” Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan, said in a CNBC-TV18 interview. “And so we had a lot of phone calls over the weekend. What does it mean?”
JPMorgan is among the top ten US employers of H-1B visa holders, with 2,440 employees on such visas, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Other major banks, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, are also significant users of the program.
According to reporting by Bloomberg, the new fee has prompted some firms to consider shifting more operations to their Indian business support centers, which already play a crucial role in handling trading support, risk management, and technology functions. Citigroup employs about 33,000 staff in India, Bank of America has more than 27,000, and JPMorgan has 55,000.
“Unless new restrictions are placed on offshoring, foreign banks will lean even more on their Indian capability centers,” Umesh Chhazzed, founder of recruitment firm Anlage Infotech, told Bloomberg.
In separate comments to the Times of India, Dimon emphasized the importance of cross-border mobility for the bank, noting, “The challenge is that the US still needs to remain an attractive destination.”
A document from the Department of Homeland Security made a further update Tuesday, detailing plans to overhaul the H-1B lottery system. Instead of a randomized selection, the new process would prioritize higher earners, assigning applicants to one of four wage bands.
Those in the highest tier – earning an average annual salary of $162,528 – would be entered into the selection pool four times, while those in the lowest tier would be entered only once. The stated goal is to favor higher-skilled, higher-paid workers while maintaining opportunities at all wage levels.
Business groups and immigration attorneys have raised concerns about the changes, warning that using Department of Labor wage levels as a proxy for skill could disadvantage early-career professionals and recent graduates from US institutions. There are also questions about whether the new approach complies with the Immigration and Nationality Act, which calls for visas to be issued in the order petitions are received.
Beyond Wall Street, the changes are also reverberating through the technology sector, which is among the largest users of the H-1B program. Tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google each employ thousands of H-1B holders in the US.
The new US policy could also play into the hands of rival hubs for global talent. Charles-Henry Monchau, chief investment officer at Syz Group, told CNBC that the fee could be an opportunity for countries like the United Kingdom and regions such as Europe, China, and Dubai to attract skilled workers.
“It definitely could be painful for the US in terms of innovation … Because obviously if the US becomes more stringent, this is a golden opportunity for many of these countries to open the door to offshore experts and workers,” Monchau said.