Markets

OpenAI and Nvidia Are Paying Trump's $100,000 H-1B Fee. Most of Big Tech Is Not.

Frontier AI firms are absorbing a steep new visa surcharge to secure specialized talent. Larger incumbents are pulling back applications — a divergence that reveals how differently companies are pricing the cost of AI expertise.

Written by Graham Vale · Bureau Finance · Jun 19, 2026

The Fee That Was Supposed to Slow Everyone Down

When the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 surcharge on H-1B visa petitions — the nonimmigrant classification that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals in specialty occupations — the assumption was that sticker shock would suppress demand across the board. For most of the technology industry, that assumption has proven correct. For a small cohort of frontier AI companies, it has not.

OpenAI and Nvidia, whose chief executives Sam Altman and Jensen Huang publicly declined to oppose the fee when it was proposed, are now absorbing it in volume. Both companies have increased their H-1B application numbers since the surcharge took effect, according to reporting by Fortune.

What the Divergence Actually Signals

The contrast with larger tech employers is instructive. Companies with workforces numbering in the tens of thousands — and correspondingly large H-1B rosters — are pulling back filings. At that scale, the arithmetic is unforgiving: a company filing 500 petitions annually would face $50 million in fees alone, before legal costs or processing time.

For OpenAI and Nvidia, the calculus is different. Both are competing for a talent pool that is, by most credible estimates, genuinely constrained. The number of researchers capable of working at the frontier of large language model training or advanced semiconductor architecture is small globally. When the alternative to paying $100,000 per petition is losing a candidate to a competitor or to a foreign research institution, the fee becomes a cost of doing business rather than a deterrent.

This is not altruism or political signaling. It is a revealed preference about how these companies value specific human capital.

The Balance-Sheet Consequence

For investors and analysts tracking AI company financials, the H-1B fee is worth treating as a recurring operating cost rather than a one-time event. If OpenAI is filing, say, 50 to 100 petitions per cycle, the visa surcharge alone adds $5 million to $10 million to its talent acquisition line — before salaries, relocation, or benefits.

Nvidia, as a public company, will eventually disclose the aggregate impact in its operating expense disclosures, though it is unlikely to be broken out as a separate line item. Analysts should look for it embedded in research and development headcount costs.

A Structural Advantage in the Making

The longer-term implication is more consequential than the immediate cost. If the $100,000 fee persists — and there is no legislative signal that it will be reversed — it functions as a structural barrier that well-capitalized AI firms can clear and smaller competitors cannot.

A startup with 40 employees and a Series B runway cannot easily absorb $100,000 per foreign hire. OpenAI, which has raised capital at a valuation in the hundreds of billions of dollars, can. The fee, whatever its immigration-policy intent, may inadvertently concentrate AI talent at the largest and best-funded organizations.

That is a market-structure question regulators have not yet engaged with directly. It may be worth their attention.

Key takeaways

OpenAI and Nvidia have increased H-1B visa applications even after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 per-application fee, a cost most companies have treated as prohibitive.
Larger tech incumbents with bigger domestic workforces are cutting back on H-1B filings, suggesting the fee is functioning as a meaningful deterrent at scale.
The divergence exposes a two-tier labor market in tech: frontier AI companies competing for a narrow pool of specialized researchers are willing to absorb costs that general-purpose tech employers are not.
The $100,000 fee represents a significant new line item in talent acquisition budgets — for a company filing dozens of petitions, the aggregate cost runs into the millions.
The pattern raises longer-term questions about whether high visa costs will entrench advantages for well-capitalized AI firms that can absorb them, while constraining smaller competitors.

FAQ

What is the H-1B visa, and why does it matter to tech companies?

The H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa classification that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals in specialty occupations — typically roles requiring at least a bachelor's degree in a specific field. Technology companies rely heavily on H-1B petitions to recruit engineers, researchers, and data scientists from outside the United States, particularly when domestic supply of specialized skills is limited.

How large is the $100,000 H-1B fee relative to normal visa costs?

Standard H-1B filing fees, including government processing and legal costs, have historically run in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 per petition depending on employer size and processing speed. The Trump administration's $100,000 surcharge represents an increase of roughly ten to twenty times that baseline, making it a material cost for any employer filing more than a handful of petitions per year.

Why are larger tech companies cutting back on H-1B applications while frontier AI firms are not?

Larger incumbents typically file H-1B petitions across a broad range of roles, many of which could be filled domestically with additional recruiting effort. The $100,000 fee makes that substitution economically rational. Frontier AI companies are competing for a much narrower talent pool — researchers with specific expertise in areas like large language model training or advanced chip architecture — where domestic substitutes are scarce and the cost of losing a candidate is high.

Will this fee show up in company financial disclosures?

For public companies like Nvidia, the aggregate cost of H-1B fees will be embedded in operating expenses, most likely within research and development or general and administrative line items. It is unlikely to be disclosed as a separate line. Analysts tracking headcount growth relative to R&D expense growth may be able to infer the impact over time.

Could the fee create a competitive advantage for large AI companies?

Potentially, yes. If the $100,000 surcharge persists, it raises the cost of hiring specialized foreign talent in a way that well-capitalized firms can absorb and smaller competitors cannot. This could concentrate AI research talent at the largest organizations, which is a market-structure outcome worth monitoring regardless of one's view on the underlying immigration policy.

Citations

OpenAI and Nvidia CEOs didn't flinch at Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee, and now they're paying up as their application numbers soarOpenAI and Nvidia have increased H-1B visa application numbers despite the $100,000 per-petition surcharge imposed by the Trump administration.
OpenAI and Nvidia CEOs didn't flinch at Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee, and now they're paying up as their application numbers soarWhile frontier AI companies boost their number of foreign workers, other tech giants with much larger workforces are cutting back on H-1B filings.
Fortune — Finance and Business CoverageBureau research source: Fortune, used as primary reporting basis for H-1B application trend data.