Indian IT industry is going to incur $400 mn burden as they will have to pay $4,000 more for each H-1B visa

For every H1-B visa application now, Indian IT companies will have to shell out additional $ 4,000 under the new regulations.

A federal US agency stated that companies applying L-1 visa applications would have to pay additional $4,500 than other US companies. This will be in effect till September 30, 2025.

While the H-1B visa is designed to allow US employers to recruit and employ foreign professionals, the L-1 visas are available to employees of an international company with offices in both the US and abroad.

Indian IT firms - which have to incur an additional burden of about $400 million annually - have called it "discriminatory", with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself raising this at the highest level.

US federal Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted the details of the increased fee on its website today.

For H-1B petitioners, one "must pay the additional $4,000 fee" if the company employs 50 or more employees in the US and more than half of those are in H-1B, L-1A, or L-1B nonimmigrant status.

The figure increases to $4,500 for those applying for L-1 visas.