H-1B Visa Cost

If you are sponsoring a worker this year, your H-1B visa cost is not a single number on one invoice. It is a stack of government fees, an optional speed surcharge, attorney costs, and, for some petitions, a $100,000 payment that has bounced through three federal courts in the past 6 months. A standard cap-subject petition runs roughly $5,500 to $9,500 before premium processing, shifting with your company size and where your hire sits when you file. 

This guide breaks down the full H-1B visa cost 2026, fee by fee, who is legally on the hook for each one, and where the headline-grabbing $100,000 charge actually stands today.

What is the H-1B visa?

The H-1B visa is a temporary work visa that lets you hire foreign professionals in specialty occupations, meaning roles that normally require at least a bachelor’s degree in a specific field. You will see it used heavily in engineering, software, finance, medicine, and research, and a narrow subcategory even covers fashion models of distinguished merit and ability.

Congress caps the H-1B visa program at 85,000 new visas each fiscal year, which is why most employers enter the annual H-1B lottery to secure a slot. USCIS grants status in 3-year increments, up to 6 years total. Nearly every line item below is your responsibility as the employer, not the worker’s.

Government filing fees every employer must pay

Your core cost is the set of mandatory fees you pay U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to register and file the petition. These scale with your headcount, so a 15-person startup and a 5,000-person company write sharply different checks. The table below breaks down the H-1B filing fee 2026 schedule by full-time equivalent (FTE) headcount.

A few notes on the line items. The H-1B registration fee 2026 is $215 per beneficiary, paid during the March window and nonrefundable whether or not you are selected. Form I-129 is your H-1B petition itself, and its base fee depends on your size.

The ACWIA fee, named for the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act, funds U.S. worker training and is waived for higher education institutions, affiliated nonprofits, and government research organizations. The fraud prevention and detection fee, sometimes called the anti-fraud fee, is $500 on new petitions and transfers.

The Asylum Program Fee is $600 for large employers, $300 for small ones, and $0 for qualifying nonprofits. One more charge applies under Public Law 114-113: a $4,000 fee for companies with over 50 U.S. employees where most hold H-1B or L-1 status. Most filers fall below it. You can confirm current amounts on the USCIS fee schedule.

Premium processing fee

If you need certainty on timing, you will want premium processing. Standard adjudication can take 8 to 12 months, a long time to leave a start date in limbo. The H-1B premium processing fee is $2,965 as of March 1, 2026, up from $2,805.

That fee buys a guaranteed USCIS action within 15 business days, whether the action is an approval, a denial, or a Request for Evidence (RFE). It is optional, refundable if the agency misses the window, and it changes your speed, not your odds of approval.

Consular and visa stamp fees

If your hire is abroad, the cost extends past the agency to the U.S. Department of State. After your petition is approved, your worker applies for the actual visa stamp at a U.S. embassy or consulate through consular processing, and those fees sit separate from everything above.

The main charge is the Machine Readable Visa (MRV) application fee, currently $205, paid when filing the DS-160 form and listed on the U.S. Department of State visa fee schedule. Some nationalities also owe a visa issuance reciprocity fee that varies by country. Build in time to schedule the U.S. embassy interview, since appointment backlogs run months in some countries.

None of this applies when your worker is already in the country and obtains H-1B status through a change of status rather than visa stamping. A candidate adjusting from another status inside the U.S. skips this step until they next travel.

Attorney and legal fees

You will not see attorney fees on any USCIS schedule, but for most employers they are a real and significant part of the total cost. Plan for H-1B attorney fees as a true line item, because an immigration attorney typically charges $3,000 to $5,500 to prepare and file a single cap petition.

This is where the all-in number climbs. Add attorney work to government fees and a standard petition lands at roughly $5,500 for a small employer and up to $9,500 for a large one, before premium processing. Some providers, including Lighthouse, use flat-fee pricing and add no charge for an RFE response, which removes a common surprise cost.

Who pays the H-1B visa cost

You, the employer, carry almost all of it. Federal labor rules treat the I-129 base fee, ACWIA fee, fraud fee, Asylum Program Fee, and the $4,000 surcharge as required business expenses you cannot shift to the worker. Doing so counts as an unauthorized wage deduction that drops pay below the required wage and breaks your Labor Condition Application (LCA).

On the worker’s side, the H-1B visa cost is light. The H-1B visa cost for employee is generally limited to the consular MRV fee, any reciprocity fee, and the speed surcharge when the worker requests faster handling for personal reasons unrelated to your business needs.

Everything tied to H-1B sponsorship stays with the company. Improper fee shifting can trigger back-wage orders, civil penalties, and even debarment, so pair every cost decision with an LCA compliance check before you file.

The $100,000 H-1B fee in 2026

You have probably seen the headline number, and you need a clear read on whether it touches your filing. The $100,000 H-1B fee comes from Presidential Proclamation 10973, signed September 19, 2025, and it applies only to new petitions for workers located outside the U.S. and subject to consular processing. When it applies, you pay it through pay.gov before filing.

Most petitions are exempt. The fee does not reach extensions, transfers from another U.S. employer, or workers who obtain H-1B status through a change of status inside the country, which is the route most F-1 students take. A limited national interest exception also exists, though guidance on who qualifies remains thin.

Important note: the legal status of this fee is unsettled as of mid-June 2026. A D.C. district court upheld it in December 2025, but on June 8, 2026, a Massachusetts court vacated it nationwide as a tax only Congress can impose. The government appealed, and the court paused its own order on June 12 pending First Circuit review.

That pause matters for your budget: USCIS may still require the fee for qualifying consular petitions right now. Confirm the current status with USCIS or counsel before relying on either outcome, because it can change with little notice.

Total H-1B visa cost to sponsor a worker

Adding it all up, the total H-1B visa cost breakdown depends on your size, your worker’s location, and whether you opt for speed. Here is the realistic range for a new cap petition, excluding the contested $100,000 charge:

• Small employer (under 26 employees): roughly $5,500 to $7,500 all-in, combining about $2,225 in government fees with $3,000 to $5,000 in attorney costs.
• Large employer (26 or more): roughly $7,500 to $9,500 all-in, combining about $3,595 in government fees with $3,500 to $5,500 in attorney costs.
• Premium processing: add $2,965 to either tier when you need a decision in 15 business days.
• Public Law 114-113 fee: add $4,000 if you cross the 50-employee threshold where over half of staff hold H-1B or L-1 status.

Company size is the biggest swing factor on the H-1B visa cost for employer budgets, since the I-129 base fee, ACWIA fee, and Asylum Program Fee all step up at 26 full-time employees.

Extension and transfer fees

When you extend or move an existing worker, a common worry is whether you pay the full slate again. You do not. A standard 3-year extension of stay with the same employer skips the $215 registration, because there is no new H-1B lottery, and it skips the $500 fraud fee.

A transfer to a new employer is closer to a fresh filing. The new company pays the Form I-129 base fee, the fraud fee, its own tier of the ACWIA fee, and the asylum charge, but it does not re-enter the H-1B cap or pay another registration fee, since the worker already holds H-1B status.

You keep the speed option on both moves, and it stays optional. The two fees that do not apply to a same-employer extension are the registration fee and the fraud fee.

H-4 dependent visa costs

If your hire is bringing a spouse or children, plan for their costs too, even though they sit outside your required fees. H-4 visas are the dependent category tied to the principal H-1B holder, and the H-4 visa lets a spouse or child stay for the same period as the principal worker.

Filing Form I-539 to extend or change a dependent to H-4 status costs $470. If an H-4 spouse is eligible to work and applies for an Employment Authorization Document with Form I-765, that adds $520. Families usually pay these themselves, and timing them alongside the principal petition avoids gaps in status.

Prevailing wage and total employment cost

The largest H-1B-related cost is one no fee schedule lists: the salary itself. Before you file, the Department of Labor requires you to pay the higher of the prevailing wage for the role and location or your actual wage for similar workers, and you certify that on the LCA.

Wage levels run from Level I to Level IV based on the role’s complexity and the local market, so a senior engineering role in a high-cost metro carries a far higher required wage than an entry-level position elsewhere. Under the 2026 weighted selection system, your wage level also affects lottery odds, so wage strategy and cost planning now move together.

The bottom line on H-1B costs

For most employers, a petition costs several thousand dollars in government and attorney fees, with company size and speed the main variables. The $100,000 charge hits only a narrow set of consular cases and stays in legal flux. Build your budget around the fees you control, confirm the $100,000 question for your filing, and treat salary as the anchor.

How Lighthouse helps employers manage H-1B sponsorship costs

If you are budgeting H-1B sponsorship across a team, Lighthouse gives you a faster, more predictable alternative to traditional firms. Lighthouse prepares H-1B petitions in under 3 weeks, compared with the months a conventional attorney process often takes, with attorney review included in every case.

Pricing is flat and transparent, so the only costs outside the quote are the USCIS filing fees and the government’s speed surcharge. For companies with 25 or more employees, the Plus plan adds preferred pricing across visa types, compliance support, and consolidated billing, which keeps multi-hire immigration spend in one place rather than scattered across invoices.

Start your H-1B evaluation today.

Frequently asked questions on H-1B visa cost

If you are still weighing the numbers, these are the questions employers and candidates raise most often about these costs.

How much does it cost to go from H-1B to green card?

If you are moving a worker from H-1B to a green card, expect roughly $3,000 to $4,000 in government fees, plus several thousand more in attorney and recruitment costs. The main charges are the I-140 petition ($715 plus the asylum charge) and the I-485 application ($1,440), filed after PERM labor certification. EB-1 and EB-2 national interest waiver paths skip PERM.

Will H-1B renewals also cost $100,000?

No. The $100,000 fee applies only to new petitions for workers abroad who go through consular processing. Extensions and renewals with your current employer fall outside it, as do transfers from another U.S. employer and change-of-status filings inside the country.

How many people paid $100,000 for H-1B?

Hardly any employers paid it. Only about 85 of these fees were paid nationwide through February 2026, a sign of how sharply the charge suppressed affected filings while litigation played out.

Which is better, H-1B or EB-3?

For your planning, treat them as sequential rather than competing options. The H-1B is a temporary work visa, while EB-3 is an employment-based green card category for permanent residence. Many workers enter on an H-1B and later pursue an EB-3 green card through their employer, so most cases use both.

If USCIS is asking for more, why are fees still rising?

Most of the fees you pay are cost-recovery charges tied to specific functions: lottery administration, petition adjudication, the worker training fund, fraud enforcement, and the asylum program. The $100,000 charge was different, framed as a policy deterrent rather than cost recovery, which is why one court found it functioned as a tax beyond the executive’s authority.

This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. Confirm current fees on USCIS.gov and consult qualified counsel for your specific case.