The 100,000 dollar payment attached to many new H-1B workers will stay in place for another year. A presidential proclamation signed on 18 September 2026 and published in the Federal Register on 23 September extends the restriction until 12:00 am Eastern time on 21 September 2027.
The original measure, Proclamation 10973 of 19 September 2025, was set to lapse after 12 months unless it was renewed. The new Proclamation 11069 renews it with the same core terms, so the restriction now runs from 12:01 am Eastern time on 21 September 2026 for a further 12 months.
What the proclamation says
Entry into the US on an H-1B specialty occupation visa is restricted unless the petition is accompanied or supplemented by a payment of 100,000 dollars. The Secretary of Homeland Security is told to restrict decisions on petitions without that payment for H-1B workers who are currently outside the US.
Employers must, before filing a petition for a worker abroad, get and keep proof that the payment has been made. The State Department is to verify payment during the visa process and approve only applications where it has been made. The restriction applies to people who need admission to the US to act on an approved petition, whether through a consulate, a port of entry, pre-flight inspection or pre-clearance.
The exception is unchanged. The Secretary of Homeland Security may exempt an individual, all workers at a company or all workers in an industry if hiring them is in the national interest and poses no threat to US security or welfare.
The numbers the White House gives
The proclamation lays out what it says the first year achieved. The payment has been made for more than 700 petitions since September 2025. The largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms cut their combined H-1B registrations from 24,946 to 2,055, a fall of 92 per cent, and consular processing requests fell by nearly 97 per cent between the FY 2025 and FY 2027 cap seasons.
It also points to a shift in who is being picked. Registrations for people with at least a US master's degree rose from 45.1 per cent of the total for FY 2026 to 66.1 per cent for FY 2027. Jobs at the two highest wage levels made up about 46.3 per cent of selections, against 17.8 per cent at the lowest level. The text credits both the payment and the weighted selection rule that DHS finalised on 29 December 2025.
The stated reasons for keeping the restriction are labour market ones. The proclamation cites an unemployment rate of 5.7 per cent for recent college graduates in June 2026 and underemployment of 42 per cent, and notes that a Labor Department wage rule is still being written. That rule was proposed on 27 March 2026 and is not yet final.
What it means for Indian professionals
For Indian professionals the practical effect depends on where they are. The restriction covers entry from abroad, so a worker already in the US is mainly affected when travel or visa stamping is involved. For employers planning to bring someone from India on a new petition, the extra cost now has a firm date attached until September 2027. The steep fall in consular processing requests that the text cites shows how many employers have already changed course.
The order also sets up the next decision. Within 30 days after the next H-1B lottery, the Secretaries of State, Labor and Homeland Security and the Attorney General must recommend whether the restriction should be extended again. The proclamation does not mention the June 2026 ruling by a federal court in Massachusetts, which we described in our report on the proposed 103,265 dollar H-1B fee rule.
The extension comes as US hiring has slowed, as shown in the September jobs report. Employers and workers who need a ruling on their own case should look at the State Department and USCIS guidance, since the proclamation sets the policy but leaves the operational details to those agencies.
