In a major shocker, the US administration announced a massive hike in the H1-B visa fee to $100,000. This visa is widely used by tech companies to hire offshore workers temporarily to work in the United States. The announcement, made last weekend, has created a ripple effect on Dalal Street as Indian IT companies that have long benefited from US work visa programs now face the prospect of higher costs and slower revenue growth.
According to data from Reuters, over 70% of these visas went to Indian nationals, with only 12% to China. All other countries made up a vastly smaller portion in comparison. While the US tech companies have remained largely unscathed, they top the list in companies that use the H-1B visas the most.
Companies with highest H-1B visas
Analysts expect the overall impact to be moderate since the fees apply only to new applications, but they warned that a constrained supply of skilled workers in the US could drive wages higher and squeeze margins. Among the top 10 companies, only one Indian firm featured, namely Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
According to data from the Wall Street Journal as of fiscal 2025, Amazon topped the list at 14,667. It is followed by Tata Consultancy Services with 5,586 approvals. Microsoft, Meta and Apple constituted the other three companies among the top five, with 5189, 5123 and 4202 approvals.
Google follows with 4,186, and Cognizant at 3,681. Deloitte Consulting (3,180), JP Morgan (2,440) and Walmart (2,390) were among the other top companies with the highest H-1B visa workers.
The data underscores the high dependence of the US tech giants on foreign engineers and developers to fuel their growth.
Experts see limited impact on Indian IT
Most Indian brokerages do not see a significant impact of this move on the Indian IT companies.
Kotak Institutional Equities said that in the bear case, they do not assume changes in sourcing patterns and increased competition for onsite talent, leading to a 10% wage inflation, in which companies would have ~100-200 bps margin impact and 7-14% on FY2027E EPS.
In its base case, companies would prefer to replace expiring H-1Bs with subcontractors in the near term, paying 20-25% higher wages on average and assuming no significant changes to wages on a comparable basis.
Meanwhile, Elara said that for large-caps and mid-caps, if they continue to secure the same number of fresh applications in FY27E-28E as in FY25, the estimated net earnings impact would range from 3.8% to 8.4% and 1.9% to 5.8%, respectively. Under reduced application scenarios, the impact drops to 0.9% to 2.1% for large-caps and 0.5% to 1.4% for mid-caps, it added.
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