By Shanelle Kaul
April 4, 2026
Hyderabad, India — Hyderabad, long nicknamed India’s Silicon Valley, is a dense cluster of global tech companies. Employees there say the White House decision last September to impose a $100,000 fee on new H‑1B visa applications has upended career plans and could redirect where global tech workers choose to build companies.
Rajesh Jaknalli, who has worked for a U.S. tech firm in Hyderabad for about a decade, described the city as home to Google, Facebook and many other large employers. He said the area is often called High Tech City or Cyberabad. For years his aim was to perform well and earn a transfer to the U.S., but the new fee changed that expectation.
The Trump administration framed the fee as a way to protect American jobs. Before the change, H‑1B application costs typically fell in the $1,700 to $4,500 range; the new levy applies to new petitions and is intended to shift hiring incentives toward domestic workers and higher-paying roles.
For many employees the announcement meant abandoning long‑held plans. Hameed Abdul, a former Amazon employee in Hyderabad, said the policy devastated him and made him reassess his prospects. ‘It’s not beneficial for any employer, to be honest. Nobody’s going to hire you and give $100,000,’ he said, adding that he decided to move to Canada after the rule was announced.
Immigration adviser Xavier Fernandes, who runs an agency in the region, noted that the H‑1B program historically supplied much of the skilled labor that built America’s IT sector. ‘It’s definitely America’s loss,’ he said, pointing out that many CEOs have roots in Hyderabad and that the city produces high concentrations of technical talent.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data show that more than 70 percent of H‑1B holders in 2024 were Indian, a statistic Fernandes used to argue that this talent pool is like a natural resource for modern industries. He added that specialized skills take years to develop and are not easily created on short notice in the U.S.
Even President Trump has acknowledged the need for foreign talent, telling Fox News in November that ‘you also do have to bring in talent’ while disputing the idea that the U.S. has an excess of skilled workers.
Fernandes warned that the steep fee could prompt skilled workers to remain in India and build there instead of coming to the U.S. Other countries, he and several workers said, are simpler to navigate: Jaknalli is applying to Australia because he finds the process more straightforward, and others are looking at Canada and other destinations with clearer pathways for skilled migrants.
Employers are also reassessing hiring strategies. Tech firms that have long relied on H‑1B talent may need to rethink their workforce planning, invest more in local recruitment and training, or expand operations where visas are easier to secure. Those shifts could reshape where startups form and where product development happens.
The fee has introduced fresh uncertainty for both companies and prospective foreign workers. For many in Hyderabad, a city that helped power the global tech ecosystem, the policy represents a turning point: either the U.S. will make alternative arrangements to retain foreign expertise, or a significant portion of that talent may stay and innovate elsewhere.