$100k fee imposed on H1B Visas?
138
100Ṁ8671
2029
21%
chance

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-mulls-adding-new-100000-fee-h-1b-visas-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-09-19/

This resolves true if a fee largely in line with this report goes into effect. I'm sure there will be grey area here, so I won't participate.

If there are exceptions that are rare, but >=75% of H1Bs are impacted, I'll resolve yes. I'd trust a combination of official estimates and mainstream reports to decide if 75% is met. I'd define this based on 75% of the H1B load prior to the rule not after, but if only post rule data is available I'll trust that. This means if, for example, all SWEs suddenly get fees and their use drops to 0, I'd count the fraction from before the rule.

Some calculation adding up the total cost of the application doesn't count. There has to be an explicit 100k fee, not something like "50k fee + lawyer costs usually adds up to 100k".

Somewhat arbitrarily I'd like the policy to be in effect for at least a month. If a court intervenes in less than a month, I'll wait until it actually goes into effect.

If a new visa is created with this fee AND H1B is limited by more than 75% I'll resolve yes.

  • Update 2025-09-19 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - The 75% impact threshold will be evaluated based on new H-1Bs, not existing H-1B holders already in the U.S.

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Okay, I think I have a reasonable estimate of what percent of new H-1B’s are transferring from some other kind of US visa, versus what percent are from folks outside the US who weren’t previously on any kind of US visa.

My understanding is that if someone outside the US is approved for an H-1B, they still must go through a process called “consular processing” to enter the US.

15% of approved H-1B petitions request consular processing

Source: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/USCIS%20H-1B%20Authorized%20to%20Work%20Report.pdf

Ctrl-F “USCIS data show about 15% of the approved”

34% of approved H-1B petitions are for initial employment (new H-1Bs)

Source: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/FY2019_H1B_Report.pdf

Ctrl-F “About one third (34%)”. Also see the second footnote on that page, which reinforces my belief that “initial employment” is synonymous with what we’ve been calling “new H-1Bs”

Okay, we know the 15% who request consular processing are outside the US, so they were not working in the US. Then their petitions must be for initial employment. So the 15% of petitions from folks who request consular processing is a subset of the 34% of petitions that are for initial employment. Therefore, 0.15/0.34 ≈ 0.44 = 44% of new H-1Bs are from folks outside the US.

That won’t be enough to fulfill the 75% criteria. So if the new fee only applies to folks outside the US, I believe this will resolve no. I don’t think there’s an authoritative source that clearly states whether or not transfers from some different US visa to an H-1B will be affected, but in my opinion there are significant signs that this will only apply to people outside the US.

edit: Of course, this is for a different year, and it's not even clear to me that the two percentages were derived from data covering the same year. Not saying this should be the final say on this percentage. It's just a useful estimate for knowing how to bet.

It's looking like transfers from different visas are not going to be impacted

https://www.reddit.com/r/h1b/s/B1XiAgX6uo

It's probably best to exclude transfers from this market, and I say that as a No holder. If you only consider newcomers who weren't previously holding any US visa, then the market effectively becomes "Will they do what they are currently saying they'll do, or will it back walked back/struck down?" which is the most interesting question for the market to evaluate, imo.

If you continue to evaluate it as new H-1B's (as opposed to new visas in general), then you'd have to figure out what percent of H-1Bs issued are transfers from some other kind of US visa, and I don't think those numbers are available.

@JeremiahKellick so my goal for this market is to try to sus out the publicity "we're changing h1bs!" from the substance "american business runs on immigrants". I think transfers from other visas like OPT to H1B being excluded would work out like the special exceptions. If they exclude a bunch of industries and a bunch of different transfer types and only end up impacting a small fraction of H1Bs, then this will resolve no.

(as an aside, I don't think that reddit post is authoritative as I am involved in hiring and haven't heard anything confident about OPT transfers yet from our immigration lawyers. Sounds like something a recruiter would claim to get someone to sign an offer)

@BenM Of course it's not authoritative, but I'd say there's a good chance things will play out that way. And if they do, this market will be unresolvable.

I can sympathize with the desire to not resolve yes if they do a half-assed implementation with widespread exceptions, but since you won't get the information you need to evaluate that, you won't actually resolve it that way. I think you'll have to fudge the criteria sooner or later, and I say better to try to stabilize the criteria early.

But it's your market, so this will be my last comment on the issue. Just my 2 cents

@JeremiahKellick I don't think this makes the market unresolvable. If transfers from other visas don't incur a fee, then it will just be more likely to resolve false.

The challenge here is going to be getting reliable data, I agree, but that's why the resolution date is so far in the future. I expect it will take time for either some sort of official report or reliable third party estimates to materialize.

bought Ṁ10 YES

What if it gets implemented but the timeline is different? Eg the proclamation says Sep 19 was the cutoff but maybe only November travel is actually affected

@KJW_01294 This can only resolve "YES" early. I didn't expect the EO to come out so fast since I made this market based on the reuters article. So if it doesn't really get rolling til 2026 that's fine too.

As someone who works in immigration, this is a massive sh*show. Rules like this normally go through a bureaucratic process that takes months. None of the middle management people who actually implement immigration policy were informed of this at all. As I write this, there are definitely people called in over the weekend trying to formulate some kind of response or clarification. Whoever wrote this "proclamation" is clearly unfamiliar with immigration law. Also, what legal effect does a proclamation have, as opposed to an executive order? I seriously doubt this will be successfully implemented in the next few months.

Some important clarifications were put out

https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1969476188008575149

The Proclamation only applies to future applicants in the February lottery who are currently outside the U.S.

So if they back down from this/it gets struck down in court before February, no one will have been impacted. If it goes through, the fact that it seems to only apply to applicants outside the U.S. could make it difficult to resolve with the 75% criteria.

@JeremiahKellick Bit confused. Why wouldn't most applicants be from people outside the U.S.? Or on any given year are the majority of applicants just re-applicants or something of people who are already residing in the U.S.?

@JeremiahKellick if existing H1B holders can’t visit their family for a week and reenter the US, this should resolve YES IMO.

The EO is clear that CBP is directed to deny entry to H1B holders if they can’t prove their employer paid the fee. This applies at point of entry, not when it’s issued, which is contrary to the WH’s (unofficial) communication.

@KJW_01294 If that happens, I agree this should resolve yes. They fucked up communicating this beyond belief, giving many contradictory statements. But I'm predicting the clarification tweet I linked will more accurately reflect how they actually execute on this than a literal reading of the EO.

@No_uh The market creator said the 75% criteria is based on new H1B's only, so renewals won't be relevant to this market. An example of a new H1B going to someone already in the US is a person transferring from a student visa to an H1B. I have no idea if that would represent close to 25% of H1B's in a typical year. It's just something that might need to be taken into account, unless @BenM wants to update the language to exclude folks transferring from a different type of visa.

@JeremiahKellick thanks for your response! yeah, you're right about the prior clarification, I didn't read close enough. And yeah I wouldn't have any remote estimation on whether that transfer number would be close to 25% of all H1B's in a given year.

thanks!

@JeremiahKellick so my reason for specifying "new" is that it seemed cleaner and more likely to get reported. I would expect renewal to be strictly more relaxed than new, so if by some chance data is only available combined, I'll have to try and find some way to get at a clean answer.

I think they're likely to designate exceptions for certain types of jobs like "AI" to continue the brain drain. It's probably game over for cookie cutter SWEs though

The US is not going to suddenly constrain its most high value work to 4.22% of the global population. That would be beyond retarded.

But as far as the H1B goes, this could be the beginning of the end of the program for sure. Among all ways to kill it adding a 100k fee is probably the most effective. Big tech will lobby hard to get a new visa category through congress ASAP

Here's the order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers/

my not lawyer understanding of this suggest it passes most of the conditions as written and so the only test will be if it ends up applying to >75% of H1Bs and if it is actually implemented for a whole month.

>      (c)  The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary’s discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.

@BenM Well the tricky thing is it appears to be based on entry to the country. So it may affect less than 75% of h1bs if folks who are already in don't leave? Are you resolving based on affecting 75% of new h1bs or existing?

@JeremiahKellick yeah, I'm only thinking about new h1bs.

@JeremiahKellick Many H1B workers are required periodically to leave the country to renew the visa. So they would all end up paying the fee eventually, just not immediately.

(Of course those visa renewals are also being slow-rolled right now, so that might not make a huge difference)


EDIT: Per https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/20/donald-trump-h1b-visas-overhaul-00574345

it seems like maybe this won't apply to renewals. Or maybe it will -- the text says it does, after all, and this all smells of chaos engineering.

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