The “Trump Gold Card” visa allows foreign nationals permanent residency and a pathway to US citizenship for a US$1 million investment in the United States. Photo / Getty Images
An immigration consultancy sees the new US$100,000 ($167,000) fee for H-1B visas – popular with tech firms – putting pressure on other US visa categories, but still sees workarounds.
It also has unintended consequences, as the measure designed to punish Big Tech firms that had been abusing the process consequently punishes startups, many of whom can’t afford the fee, who had been following the rules.
Trump sparked panic in the industry on Saturday (NZT) with his presidential proclamation announcing the new charge.
There were reports of staff about to board planes overseas who were ordered off by their employers, for fear of being hit by the US$100,000 fee when they re-entered the country.
The immediate pressure was alleviated somewhat the next day as the White House issued a series of what AFP called “major clarifications” via press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
They included that the fee would apply from the next H-1B lottery in February next year (notwithstanding the immediate language of the proclamation).
“There have been soon-to-be brides and grooms and family and friends of those who were having to make some impossible decisions until this notice came out,” said Kevin Park, cofounder of Concord – an NZ-based firm specialising in visas for founders and startup staff who want to work in the US, as the clarification was released.
A second key “clarification” was that the US$100,000 would be a one-off fee (on Friday, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick repeatedly referred to it as an annual fee).
Park says a third is that it now appears the fee won’t apply to “portability” – or when a visa is applied for a job with one firm in the US, but you then switch to a role with another company.
Leavitt also said that current H-1B visa holders could leave and re-enter without being charged the fee.
Concord, recently formed by Park and Jamie Beaton as a spinout Crimson Education, had already been focusing on an alternative route to the US: the O-1 or “talent visa” (one of the talents it applies to is business skills; Concord charges US$6500 to US$10,000, depending on the level of assistance).
The focus came after a chance meeting with another Kiwi entrepreneur in the US saw Beaton successfully apply for an 0-1 (which he’s since had renewed multiple times). Beaton said the H-1B had become a “political football”.
For its Australian customers, Concord has also been pushing the E-3 visa option.
The E-3 was negotiated as part of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), signed in 2005. It allows skilled Australians to work in the US. NZ has no equivalent.
“E-3 is the calmer cousin of the H-1B,” Park said.
“There’s no lottery, you can apply any time of the year, and it’s without a US$100,000 fee.”
The E-3 has a 10,500 cap per year.
“The cap has never been reached before, but that may change this year,” Park said.
“Our concern here is that this could create an E3 tsunami.
There could be some real blockages on the E3 applications, especially on the embassy interviews where a backlog could easily form.”
More broadly, Park remains concerned about new face-to-face interview criteria announced shortly before the H-1B fee proclamation. Details are still being ironed out – which could include multiple exemptions – but as things stand, US embassies and consulates around the world just don’t have enough staff, he said.
Christine van Hoffen, global head of people at Auckland-based marketing start-up Tracksuit, which is expanding into North America, said two Australian staff had E-3 interviews shortly before the changes were announced but said looking ahead, “An area of concern is the potential for increased consulate and embassy interview delays or backlogs, which we now need to plan for well in advance to minimise stress for our staff and prevent business disruption.”
65,000 H-1B visas are granted annually. Another 20,000 reserved just for foreign nationals who hold advanced degrees from US universities.
Demand for the visa typically exceeds the supply, triggering a lottery system.
Trump’s Presidential Proclamation announcing the change said, “Many American tech companies have laid off their qualified and highly skilled American workers and simultaneously hired thousands of H-1B workers”. One company, “Reduced its workforce by approximately 27,000 American workers since 2022, while being approved for over 25,000 H-1B workers since FY2022,” the proclamation said.
It listed three similar examples, if without naming the companies or the skill level or otherwise of the laid-off staff.
Park said that in his opinion, Trump was correct that some were abusine the process. There were “bad actors”; Big Tech firms who used H-1B visas to replace US workers with cheaper, imported staff.
But he says the fix will have its biggest impact on smaller firms; “good actor” startups who have a genuine need and desire to bring highly-skilled people into the US to fill positions that can’t be filled by locals, but who would often be scratching to afford a US$100,000. (The charge comes on top of around US$1500 in existing admin fees.)
Trump also announced a “gold card”, which would allow applicants to skirt the H-1B application process if they pay $1 million to the US Treasury.
Workers from India - the home of giant outsourcing and offshoring specialists including, Tata and Infosys - accounted for nearly three-quarters of H-1B visas in 2025, according to Pew Research.
The Wall Street Journal reported comments from economists who saw short-term benefit for some American workers, but that the overall effect of the new US$100,000 fee would be negative.
“H-1B visas cause innovation, they cause entrepreneurship, they cause more R&D investment,” George Mason University economist Michael Clemens told the paper.
“They cause higher productivity in the whole US economy, which generates job opportunities and higher earnings for native workers across the skill spectrum.”
Meanwhile, the immigration industry has to keep on its toes.
Park says visa settings and fees have historically come from a well-telegraphed Congressional process.
The abrupt switch to policy by presidential proclamation caught the sector on the hop.
And if tariff and foreign student policy is any indication, further short-notice changes are possible.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.