The news: President Donald Trump is continuing his immigration crackdown with a signed proclamation that adds a $100,000 fee to all new applications for H-1B visas, potentially complicating and clamping down on the market for AI-skilled workers in the US.

The fee is intended to reduce tech companies’ reliance on foreign workers and encourage domestic recruiting, per US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, according to The New York Times. It’s required for applications dated September 21, 2025, and later.

Here are three ways the order could affect the tech industry.

1. The gap between Big Tech and challengers could widen: Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia were among the top employers for H-1B visa holders last year, per the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

• Those Big Tech players may trim long-term hiring plans in light of higher H-1B fees and reduce international recruiting.
• The ongoing talent war between Meta, Apple, and OpenAI could intensify as fewer AI engineers become available.

Outside the Magnificent Seven, AI specialists’ already-high salaries could widen the talent access gap between rising AI firms and established tech giants.

• Apple’s AI specialists average $183,000 in annual base salary, per Glassdoor, making H-1B fees relatively negligible. That figure doesn’t consider bonuses or stock options.
• Ballooning employee costs could hinder smaller companies and make it prohibitively expensive to bring in foreign workers.

2. Competitive disadvantages could grow: Restricting the flow of international talent risks eroding US tech leadership.

• Countries like Canada, the UK, and Singapore, which actively encourage skilled immigration, may become more attractive destinations for both workers and firms.
• The policy could also hurt the US’ ability to compete with China, where large-scale and cutting-edge model development benefits from large pools of engineering talent.

3. It might add more hiring pressure: Many highly skilled roles in software engineering, AI, and data science are already hard to fill domestically. Even if firms push harder to recruit US workers, skills gaps may deepen, creating resource bottlenecks.

• Two-thirds of C-level executives already cite talent gaps for skilled personnel as a top concern about AI implementation, per BearingPoint.
• Companies unable to swing the H-1B fees could accelerate offshoring or nearshoring of operations, undermining the strength of US innovation hubs like San Francisco.

Our take: While intended to spur domestic hiring, the reality is that the US lacks sufficient AI training infrastructure to meet current demand. With a pre-existing lack of employer investment in workforce development to grow US employees’ AI skills, the policy risks shrinking the AI talent pool even more and slowing innovation.