H-1B Visa Minimum Wage Statistics 2026 | Key Facts

H-1B Visa Minimum Wage in America 2026: The Biggest Shake-Up in Two Decades

The H-1B visa program’s wage rules are undergoing the most significant overhaul in more than 20 years — and in 2026, every employer, foreign worker, and immigration attorney in the country is watching closely to see how it plays out. Since 2005, the Department of Labor has determined minimum prevailing wages for H-1B workers using four salary tiers pegged to the 17th, 34th, 50th, and 67th percentiles of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey. That methodology — largely unchanged for two decades — has been the subject of mounting criticism from domestic labor advocates, STEM workers, and economists who argue it allows employers to legally pay H-1B workers significantly below what their American counterparts earn. On March 27, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor formally responded by publishing a landmark Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) under Docket No. ETA-2026-0001, titled “Improving Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Foreign Nationals in the United States.” The proposed rule would shift the four wage tiers to the 34th, 52nd, 70th, and 88th percentiles of OEWS data — increases that could raise entry-level H-1B salary floors by more than 30% and reshape the economics of the entire program for employers who use it most heavily. A 60-day public comment period ran through May 26, 2026, and a final rule has not yet been published as of the date of this article.

This rulemaking does not exist in isolation. It is the most recent — and potentially most consequential — piece of a coordinated set of H-1B policy changes that began with Presidential Proclamation 10973 on September 19, 2025, which declared the H-1B program had been “deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, U.S. workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor” and directed the Secretary of Labor to initiate rulemaking on prevailing wages. The same proclamation imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions filed for beneficiaries located outside the United States — a figure vastly higher than the previous employer fee range of $2,000–$5,000 — and directed USCIS to implement a wage-weighted lottery system beginning FY 2027, where workers offered Level IV wages receive four lottery entries while Level I workers receive only one. Together, these changes represent the most substantial restructuring of H-1B wage and selection mechanics since the program’s creation in 1990. Understanding the wage statistics at the centre of this debate — what H-1B workers currently earn, how those earnings compare to prevailing market rates, and what the proposed changes would mean in dollar terms — is essential for any employer, worker, or policy observer navigating the H-1B landscape in 2026.

Key Facts: H-1B Visa Minimum Wage Statistics in 2026

The table below captures the most important, verified, and up-to-date facts about H-1B visa minimum wages and the program’s current state as of May 2026.

Sources: DOL NPRM Federal Register March 27, 2026 (ETA-2026-0001); DOL Press Release March 26, 2026; U.S. Secretary of Labor statement March 2026; Penn Wharton Budget Model April 8, 2026; Boundless.com NPRM analysis (April 2026); SHRM March 27, 2026; USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub FY 2025

The raw wage data in the DOL’s own NPRM filing is the most candid official acknowledgment yet that the current H-1B wage system has been functioning at a persistent discount to market. The finding that the OEWS mean wage for equivalent occupations and geographies is $130,219 — roughly $19,000 above the average prevailing wage across all certified LCAs — means that the legal minimum floor for H-1B workers in identical jobs, locations, and experience levels has been set nearly $19,000 below what BLS data shows the average American worker in those jobs earns. That gap is not a marginal rounding difference. It is a structural discount built into the legal architecture of the program and maintained deliberately through the choice of low percentile anchors. The additional finding that 63% of all certified LCAs in FY 2024 were at Level I or II — the two lowest tiers, where the gap between prevailing wage and market wage is widest — tells you exactly where this discount is being concentrated: in entry-level and early-career roles, which is precisely where domestic STEM graduates compete most directly with H-1B workers for their first professional jobs.

The DOL’s citation of a 2023 Economic Policy Institute study showing that the top 30 H-1B employers laid off at least 85,000 workers in 2022 and early 2023 while simultaneously hiring 34,000 H-1B workers during the same period gave political weight to what might otherwise have been a technical wage methodology argument. Whether the correlation between domestic layoffs and H-1B hiring reflects deliberate displacement or coincidental market dynamics remains contested — but the numbers entered the official regulatory record and have been central to the administration’s public justification for the proposed wage increases.

H-1B Prevailing Wage Level Statistics 2026: Current Tiers vs. Proposed Changes

H-1B WAGE TIER COMPARISON: CURRENT vs. PROPOSED (NPRM March 2026)
====================================================================
         CURRENT PERCENTILE → PROPOSED PERCENTILE
Level I  █████████  17th percentile → ██████████████████  34th percentile
Level II █████████████████  34th percentile → ████████████████████████  52nd percentile
Level III ████████████████████████  50th percentile → ████████████████████████████████  70th percentile
Level IV █████████████████████████████████  67th percentile → █████████████████████████████████████████  88th percentile
====================================================================
ENTRY-LEVEL (LEVEL I) POTENTIAL SALARY IMPACT:
Current Level I floor (17th pct): Below-market by design
Proposed Level I floor (34th pct): Median-adjacent; ~30%+ increase in floor
====================================================================
FY 2024 LCA DISTRIBUTION BY WAGE LEVEL:
Level I:  ████████████████  28.6% of registrations
Level II: █████████████████████  39.2% of registrations
Level III:████████████  14.8% of registrations
Level IV: ████████  17.4% of registrations
Under proposed NPRM thresholds:
"Too Low" (below new Level I): ██████  20.9% of FY 2024 registrations would be eliminated
====================================================================

Sources: DOL NPRM ETA-2026-0001 (March 27, 2026); Boundless.com NPRM analysis (April 2026); SHRM (March 27, 2026); Penn Wharton Budget Model (April 8, 2026); Ahluwalia Law NPRM summary (March 26, 2026); Murthy Law Firm (March 26, 2026); CDF Labor Law LLP (December 2025); CUPA-HR (March 26, 2026)

The proposed shift from the 17th to the 34th percentile for Level I — a doubling of the entry-level percentile anchor — is the single most consequential element of the NPRM for the typical H-1B employer. Since 63% of all FY 2024 LCAs were filed at Level I or Level II, and since both of those tiers face the largest proposed percentage increases, the financial impact on employers concentrated at the lower wage tiers would be immediate and broad upon finalization. The Penn Wharton Budget Model’s analysis, published April 8, 2026, provides the most precise quantification available: under the new NPRM thresholds, 20.9% of FY 2024 registrations would fall entirely below even the new minimum Level I floor and would receive zero lottery entries — effectively barring them from the cap-subject lottery entirely. For employers that rely heavily on Level I placements — a category that includes many IT staffing and outsourcing firms that place H-1B workers at client sites — the proposed rule, if finalized, would represent an existential challenge to their current business model.

It is important to note that the NPRM does not take effect immediately and may be challenged in court if finalized, as its 2021 predecessor was. The Biden administration never pursued further prevailing wage rulemaking after the January 2021 final rule was vacated by a federal court on procedural grounds. The Trump administration’s current NPRM represents the first formal attempt at this change since that 2021 vacatur, and the Duane Morris immigration team has noted that H-1B cap petitions for FY 2027 (which must be filed by June 30, 2026) are expected to remain unaffected since their LCAs would have been filed prior to the rule’s anticipated effective date. The clock is ticking on the comment period — which closed May 26, 2026 — and the timeline to a final rule remains uncertain.

H-1B Visa Wage by Occupation: Current Salary Data 2026

AVERAGE H-1B WAGES BY TOP OCCUPATION CATEGORIES (DOL/OFLC FY 2025 LCA DATA)
==============================================================================
Software Developers & Engineers  ██████████████████████████████  $130,000–$160,000+
(San Francisco / Seattle top metros: $150,000–$185,000+)
Computer Systems Analysts         ████████████████████████  $100,000–$130,000
Data Scientists / AI/ML Engineers ████████████████████████████  $125,000–$160,000+
Financial Analysts                ████████████████████  $90,000–$125,000
Management Consultants            █████████████████████  $100,000–$140,000
Physicians / Surgeons             ███████████████████████████  $180,000–$250,000+
Accountants                       ████████████████  $75,000–$100,000
Mechanical Engineers              ████████████████  $80,000–$110,000
==============================================================================
MEDIAN ANNUAL SALARY — ALL H-1B APPROVED WORKERS (USCIS FOIA, 2000-2023):
Pew Research Center (March 2025): H-1B workers median annual salary = $123,000
==============================================================================
AVERAGE GAP: LCA prevailing wage ($111,717) vs. OEWS mean ($130,219) = -$18,502
AVERAGE GAP: Offered wage ($121,908) vs. OEWS mean ($130,219) = -$8,311
==============================================================================

Sources: Pew Research Center (March 4, 2025) — USCIS FOIA data 2000–2023; DOL NPRM ETA-2026-0001 (March 27, 2026) — LCA wage analysis FY 2020–2025; Homeabroadinc H-1B Wage Levels 2026 (updated March 17, 2026); DOL OFLC FLAG wage search tool (active wage year July 2025–June 2026)

The occupation-level wage data tells a story that is more complicated than either critics or defenders of the H-1B program typically acknowledge. The median annual salary of $123,000 across all H-1B approved workers from 2000 to 2023 — established by Pew Research Center’s March 2025 analysis of USCIS FOIA data — is well above the median US household income. But the aggregate median obscures the critical distribution: at the top of the wage scale, H-1B workers at major tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft are earning $150,000–$200,000+, well above prevailing market rates. At the bottom — the Level I and Level II workers who account for 63% of all FY 2024 LCAs — many workers are being paid at the legal minimum, which the DOL’s own data now confirms sits $18,502 below the OEWS mean for equivalent jobs. It is this lower tier that drives the legitimate criticism of the program and that the current NPRM is specifically designed to address.

The geographic dimension of H-1B wages is also critical and often understated in national-level statistics. Because prevailing wages are set by the DOL on a metropolitan area-specific basis — using 2020 Census-defined metro boundaries as of the current July 2025–June 2026 wage year — a software engineer in San Jose has a dramatically different prevailing wage floor than the same title in Indianapolis or Raleigh. This geographic granularity means that national average figures like the $111,717 LCA average mask enormous variation: an employer placing H-1B workers in Silicon Valley at Level I is still paying well above $100,000, while an employer in a lower-cost metro filing the same Level I designation may be paying under $75,000. The proposed NPRM does not alter the geographic specificity of the prevailing wage calculation — it only changes the percentile anchor — which means that the 30%+ potential increase in entry-level wage floors translates into very different dollar amounts depending on where the worker is employed.

H-1B Visa Program Statistics 2026: Applications, Lottery & Approvals

H-1B REGISTRATION VOLUMES AND SELECTION (FY 2021–FY 2026)
===========================================================
FY 2021:  ████  ~274,000 registrations (COVID recovery; lottery held)
FY 2022:  █████████  ~483,000 registrations (multiple registrations era peak)
FY 2023:  ████████████████████  ~780,000+ (multiple-registration abuse peak)
FY 2024:  ████████████████████  ~758,000 registrations (multiple; abuse peak)
FY 2025:  █████████████  ~442,000 eligible unique (beneficiary-centric, Year 1)
FY 2026:  ██████████  ~339,000 eligible unique (-26.9% from FY 2025)
===========================================================
SELECTED REGISTRATIONS (FY 2025 and FY 2026):
FY 2025: 120,603 selected from ~470,342 eligible (~25.6% rate)
FY 2026: 120,141 selected for 118,660 beneficiaries
===========================================================
APPROVAL RATES (FY 2025 — USCIS Employer Data Hub):
All petitions:          97.9%  (415,275 adjudicated; 406,349 approved)
New employment:         97%
Continuations/extensions: 98%
Transfers:              98%
Denials (all types):    8,926 petitions
===========================================================

Sources: USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub (FY 2025 and FY 2026 Q2); American Immigration Council H-1B Fact Sheet (Sept 2025); USCIS July 18, 2025 announcement; Pew Research Center (March 4, 2025); Manifest Law approval rate analysis (April 2026); Davidson Morris H-1B data 2026 (January 2026); NNU Immigration H-1B data 2025; Tryalma employment-based visa statistics; Lighthouse HQ H-1B statistics (April 2026); CDF Labor Law LLP (December 2025)

The FY 2026 registration drop of 26.9% from FY 2025 is one of the most striking single data points in the recent history of the H-1B program — and understanding it requires context. The FY 2023 and FY 2024 registration surges — which reached 758,000–780,000+ total registrations — were largely the product of multiple employers filing multiple registrations for the same individual, inflating the apparent demand and gaming the lottery’s odds. The beneficiary-centric registration system introduced for FY 2025 — which counts each unique individual only once regardless of how many employers register them — stripped out that artificial inflation and produced a more accurate picture of genuine program demand. The further decline to 339,000 eligible registrations in FY 2026, which USCIS partly attributes to ongoing fraud investigations, suggests that significant portions of prior registration volumes were not legitimate demand at all.

The 97.9% approval rate for FY 2025 is the other headline figure that deserves attention. Approval rates collapsed to roughly 75% in FY 2018–FY 2020 under the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order’s restrictive specialty-occupation interpretations. The subsequent litigation — particularly ITServe Alliance v. Cissna (2020) — and the USCIS Modernization Rule effective January 17, 2025, which codified deference to prior approvals, have returned approval rates to their pre-2017 historical norm of well above 94%. The practical implication is that the H-1B lottery, not the petition approval process, is now the primary constraint on H-1B employment — a reality that makes the wage-weighted lottery system taking effect in FY 2027 potentially the most impactful single reform in the program’s recent history, since it changes the fundamental selection mechanism rather than downstream petition adjudication.

H-1B Minimum Wage History & Key Policy Milestones 1990–2026

H-1B WAGE POLICY TIMELINE: KEY MILESTONES
============================================
1990  ▌  H-1B program created under Immigration Act of 1990
1998  ████  American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act
           → Strengthened LCA wage attestation requirements
2005  ████  Current 4-tier wage percentile system adopted
           (17th / 34th / 50th / 67th percentiles — in place for 20+ years)
2017  █████████████  Executive Order 13788 "Buy American Hire American"
           → Approval rates fell to ~75%; restrictive interpretations
2020  █████████  ITServe Alliance v. Cissna — court strikes down restrictive USCIS guidance
2020  █████████  Oct 2020: DOL issues Interim Final Rule → ~45th/62nd/78th/95th percentiles
2021  █████████  Jan 2021: Final Rule published → vacated by federal court on procedural grounds
2024  █████████  DHS Beneficiary-centric lottery rule finalized — eliminates duplicate registrations
2025  █████████  USCIS Modernization Rule (Jan 17, 2025) — codifies deference to prior approvals
2025  █████████████  Sept 19, 2025: Presidential Proclamation 10973 — $100K fee; directs DOL rulemaking
2025  █████████████  Dec 29, 2025: USCIS publishes wage-weighted lottery rule for FY 2027
2026  ████████████████████  Mar 27, 2026: DOL NPRM published — 34th/52nd/70th/88th percentiles
           60-day comment period → closed May 26, 2026
============================================

Sources: DOL NPRM ETA-2026-0001 (March 27, 2026); DOL Press Release March 26, 2026; Holland & Knight (March 31, 2026); Duane Morris Immigration (March 29, 2026); Ahluwalia Law (March 26, 2026); American Immigration Council H-1B Fact Sheet (Sept 2025); USCIS Federal Register Dec 29, 2025; Pew Research Center (March 2025); Davidson Morris H-1B data 2026; Boundless NPRM analysis (April 2026)

The 35-year history of the H-1B wage rules is, at its core, a story of political pendulums — each swing toward tighter restrictions followed eventually by a corrective swing back, with no consistent consensus on what the “right” minimum wage for H-1B workers should look like. The 2005 four-tier wage system emerged from a period of bipartisan recognition that the earlier wage attestation requirements were inadequate, but the specific percentile anchors chosen were themselves a compromise that domestic labor advocates immediately criticised as too low. The 2020–2021 Trump administration’s more aggressive interim final rule — which would have pushed Level I all the way to the 45th percentile — was more muscular than the current NPRM’s proposed 34th percentile, and it was struck down not on the merits but on procedural grounds (the DOL had bypassed notice-and-comment procedures by issuing it as an interim final rule). The current NPRM corrects that procedural error by going through the full notice-and-comment process, making it harder to challenge on procedural grounds if finalized.

What makes 2026 different from every prior episode is the simultaneity of the wage floor changes with the structural lottery reform. Even if the NPRM is ultimately challenged, modified, or delayed by litigation, the wage-weighted lottery taking effect for FY 2027 is already law — published in the Federal Register on December 29, 2025. That means that regardless of what happens to the NPRM, H-1B selection mechanics are already shifting toward higher-wage workers starting with the FY 2027 cap season. The combination of a weighted lottery that favors Level III and IV workers, a proposed wage floor increase that would disqualify 20.9% of FY 2024-era registrations entirely, and a $100,000 petition fee for overseas beneficiaries represents a convergence of policy levers all pointing in the same direction: making the H-1B program structurally more expensive, more selective, and more difficult to use for the low-wage, high-volume placements that have defined certain corners of the IT staffing and outsourcing industry. The H-1B minimum wage landscape of 2026 is, by any historical measure, the most actively contested and consequential it has ever been.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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