WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): President Trump signed two H-1B-related actions on September 18, 2026: a proclamation extending the $100,000 H-1B fee originally imposed in September 2025 for another 12 months, and a separate Executive Order directing agencies to weigh an employer’s recent layoffs when reviewing its H-1B petitions. The fee extension takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on September 21, 2026, right as the original one-year restriction was set to expire. The restriction is scheduled to remain in effect for 12 months, absent another extension, modification, or court action.
What the New Proclamation Does
The core requirement is unchanged from the original 2025 proclamation: entry into the U.S. as an H-1B specialty occupation worker is restricted unless the petition is accompanied or supplemented by a $100,000 payment. The proclamation generally targets H-1B petitions involving beneficiaries outside the United States who must seek admission to activate the petition approval, including through consular processing, port-of-entry admission, or pre-flight inspection. Employers should obtain case-specific advice concerning extensions, amendments, changes of status, and international travel.
The Secretary of Homeland Security retains discretion to exempt an individual worker, an entire company, or an entire industry from the restriction if doing so is found to serve the national interest and does not threaten U.S. security or welfare. Employers must obtain and retain documentation of payment before filing, and the State Department is directed to verify payment before approving the visa.
The White House cites steep drops in H-1B filings by large IT staffing and outsourcing firms as evidence the original restriction worked as intended, along with a shift toward higher-paid, higher-skilled registrants in the FY 2027 cap season. Those figures come from the administration’s own account of the policy’s effects and are worth reading with that in mind.
A Complicated Legal Backdrop
This renewal doesn’t arrive on settled legal ground. The original $100,000 fee has been through a genuinely messy run in the courts over the past several months. A coalition of 20 state attorneys general sued in Massachusetts as State of California v. Mullin, and on June 8, 2026, Judge Leo Sorokin vacated the policy implementing the fee, calling it an unlawful tax. A separate lawsuit in D.C., brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Association of American Universities, went the other way, with that court upholding the fee. Both rulings are on appeal, and on July 24, 2026, the First Circuit denied the government’s request to pause the Massachusetts vacatur while its appeal moves forward.
USCIS’s own guidance currently states that it disagrees with the ruling but will comply with it while it considers next steps, meaning the fee is not being collected as a formal matter. In practice, reports from employers and immigration practitioners suggest adjudication hasn’t been entirely consistent even under that posture, with some petitions filed without the $100,000 payment moving forward normally and others experiencing delays. Employers should not assume smooth, predictable processing just because the fee is currently unenforceable.
Because the renewed proclamation is a newly issued presidential action rather than simply a continuation of the one that was vacated, its relationship to the existing court rulings will likely require further legal analysis and may generate additional litigation. Whether the same plaintiffs, or new ones, challenge this renewal on the same grounds, and how quickly, remains to be seen. Employers should not assume the litigation history is behind them just because a new proclamation has been signed.
A Second Action: New Scrutiny Tied to Layoffs
The fee renewal wasn’t the only thing signed on September 18. President Trump also signed a separate Executive Order aimed at H-1B program integrity and interagency coordination. Unlike the proclamation, this order doesn’t attach a new dollar figure to anything. Instead, it changes how H-1B petitions get evaluated behind the scenes.
The order directs the Secretaries of State, Labor, and Homeland Security to consult with the Secretaries of Commerce and Education, along with the Small Business Administration, to gather additional data on wages, industry conditions, and employment specialization for use in administering the H-1B program. More notably for employers, it also directs those same three agencies to factor in a petitioning employer’s recent or planned layoffs of similarly situated U.S. workers when reviewing that employer’s H-1B visa applications.
That layoff-related scrutiny is worth flagging on its own. An employer that has recently reduced its U.S. workforce in a role comparable to the one it’s sponsoring may now face closer examination of its H-1B petitions specifically because of that layoff history, separate and apart from anything having to do with the $100,000 fee.
How This Fits With the Separate $103,265 Fee Proposal
This proclamation is entirely separate from the proposed $103,265 DHS regulatory fee on cap-subject H-1B petitions, which is still only a proposal. That rule’s public comment period closes September 24, 2026, and it would still need to be finalized before taking effect. If it is finalized as drafted, some employers could end up owing both the $100,000 payment under this proclamation and the separate $103,265 fee on the same case.
What Employers Should Do Now
Employers with H-1B workers currently outside the United States, or with petitions in progress that will require consular processing, should confirm now whether the $100,000 payment applies to their situation and build it into filing timelines and budgets going forward. Employers who have recently conducted or are planning layoffs should also be aware that those decisions may now draw closer scrutiny on any H-1B petitions filed for comparable roles. Given how quickly this area has moved between vacated, reinstated, and now renewed, employers should stay alert for further litigation developments rather than treating either action as the final word.
(Source: NPZ Law Group)
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