H-1B Workers in the US 2026 | Salaries, Employers, Jobs & Facts

H-1B Workers in America 2026

The H-1B visa program remains the primary legal pathway for U.S. employers to hire foreign-born, highly skilled workers in specialty occupations that require at least a bachelor’s degree, and 2026 has already proven to be one of the most turbulent years in the program’s history. USCIS confirmed on July 31, 2026 that it had received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated 65,000 regular H-1B cap and the 20,000 U.S. advanced-degree “master’s cap” for Fiscal Year 2027, closing the door on new cap-subject filings until next year’s lottery. At the same time, the program has been rocked by a running legal battle over the Trump administration’s proposed $100,000 H-1B entry fee, a wage-weighted lottery overhaul, and a sharp reshuffling of which companies actually win H-1B visas each year.

This report compiles the latest verified U.S. government data — sourced directly from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of State, and federal court filings — covering H-1B salaries, top sponsoring employers, approval and denial rates, country of origin, and the most recent policy developments as of this week, including the August 5, 2026 immigration fee policy update. As of today, an important legal update has landed: the fee dispute remains active in federal appeals court, and USCIS’s own alert page confirms the $100,000 payment requirement is currently blocked nationwide while the government’s appeal proceeds, a status that could change at any time.

Interesting H-1B Facts and Latest Statistics in the US 2026

Data source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; U.S. Department of Labor; Pew Research Center analysis of USCIS/DHS data, 2025

These figures capture a program at a genuine inflection point. USCIS confirmed the FY2027 cap was reached on July 31, 2026, meaning the 65,000 regular-cap and 20,000 master’s-cap slots for workers starting employment on or after October 1, 2026, are now spoken for, with all further cap-subject petitions to be rejected until the next lottery cycle. Historically, roughly 65% of all approved H-1B applications are renewals for workers already inside the country rather than brand-new hires, and the most recent published denial rate — just 2% in fiscal year 2022 — sits near a two-decade low, a dramatic swing from the 15% denial rate recorded during the first Trump administration in fiscal year 2018.

On the demographic side, government data confirms that India remains the dominant country of origin, accounting for 73% of all H-1B approvals in the most recent year with complete figures, followed by China at 12%. On compensation, the most recent verified government wage data shows H-1B workers in computer-related occupations — the single largest H-1B occupational category — earned a median annual salary of $123,600, underscoring the concentration of H-1B hiring in high-paying technology roles even as the program’s most controversial policy, the $100,000 entry fee, remains legally blocked nationwide as of this week.

Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Department of Labor

H-1B Fiscal Year 2027 Cap Season Statistics in the US 2026

Regular Cap (65,000)........... ██████████████████████████████ 65,000
Master's Cap (20,000).......... ███████████ 20,000
Total Annual Statutory Cap......██████████████████████████████████████████ 85,000

Data source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Alerts and H-1B Cap Season pages

USCIS confirmed that it had received enough petitions to meet both the 65,000-visa regular H-1B cap and the 20,000-visa master’s cap for Fiscal Year 2027, formally closing the initial filing window. Employers who registered candidates during the March 4 to March 19, 2026 electronic registration period and were selected in the lottery have been filing their Form I-129 petitions in the following months, with all FY2027 cap-subject petitions required to list an employment start date of October 1, 2026, or later. Petitions that are not cap-exempt and were not selected in this year’s registration will be rejected, leaving affected employers and workers to wait for the next lottery cycle or pursue alternative visa categories.

This year’s cap season was also the first to operate under DHS’s new wage-weighted selection rule, which took effect February 27, 2026, and gives registrations tied to higher wage levels a statistically greater chance of selection while still allowing employers to register candidates at every wage tier. According to USCIS, the goal of the weighted system is to increase the probability that scarce H-1B slots go to higher-skilled, higher-paid workers, addressing long-standing criticism that the previous fully random lottery allowed employers to flood the pool with large numbers of lower-wage registrations to improve their odds. For readers tracking how this reshuffling has affected compensation trends more broadly across the American technology sector, the related tech salary statistics in the US show how H-1B-heavy occupations like software engineering and AI development are pricing in 2026.

Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

The $100,000 H-1B Fee Legal Status Update in the US 2026

Data source: USCIS H-1B FAQ alert; State of California v. Mullin, 1:25-cv-13829 (D. Mass.)

The single biggest H-1B policy story of 2026 is the fate of the $100,000 fee that President Trump imposed by proclamation on September 19, 2025, requiring the payment to accompany new H-1B petitions for beneficiaries located outside the United States, including petitions filed during this year’s FY2027 lottery. On June 8, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the fee entirely in the case State of California v. Mullin, ruling that the payment functioned as an unlawful tax that the executive branch had no authority to impose without Congress. DHS immediately filed a motion to stay that ruling pending appeal, and on July 24, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the government’s request, finding the administration had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal.

As a direct result, USCIS’s own official H-1B alert page confirms that the agency is currently barred from assessing the $100,000 payment on H-1B petitions while the underlying appeal continues, though the agency has stated that if the order is ever lifted, it still plans to collect the payment. Before this fee was introduced, H-1B-related government filing fees for employers typically ran between $2,000 and $5,000 depending on petition type and company size, and that older, far lower fee structure is what currently applies while litigation proceeds through the courts, with legal observers widely expecting the dispute to eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

H-1B Wage-Weighted Selection and Prevailing Wage Rules in the US 2026

Prior OEWS Wage Percentile Range (Levels I-IV)........  17th–67th percentile
DOL's March 2026 Proposed New Range (Levels I-IV)...... 34th–88th percentile

Data source: U.S. Department of Labor, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, March 27, 2026; DHS Final Rule, Federal Register, December 2025

Beyond the fee litigation, the U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a significant tightening of how it calculates the prevailing wages H-1B employers must pay. Under a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published March 27, 2026, DOL wants to raise the four-tiered prevailing wage structure used for H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, and PERM cases so that each wage level aligns with the 34th to 88th percentile of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, up from the current 17th to 67th percentile range. In practice, this would push the required minimum wage for every H-1B wage level meaningfully higher, particularly for Level I (entry-level) positions, which the current formula sets relatively low.

This wage-percentile overhaul complements the DHS wage-weighted lottery rule that took effect February 27, 2026 for the FY2027 cap season, under which registrations tied to higher DOL wage levels receive proportionally greater weight in the random selection process. Together, the two rules represent a coordinated federal effort to steer the H-1B program toward higher-paid, higher-skilled positions and away from the lower-wage Level I and Level II filings that critics have long argued allowed some employers to under-pay foreign workers relative to comparable U.S. employees in the same role and region.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor

H-1B Applications, Approvals and Denial Rate Statistics in the US 2026

Total Approvals FY2024 (~400,000)..........  █████████████████████████████████
Renewal Approvals (65%)..................... ██████████████████████████
New/Initial Approvals (35%)................. ██████████████

Data source: Pew Research Center analysis of USCIS and DHS Freedom of Information Act data, 2025

Government records analyzed from USCIS and DHS show that roughly 400,000 H-1B applications were approved in fiscal year 2024, more than double the number approved in fiscal year 2000, with approvals peaking at 442,425 in fiscal year 2022. Since 2013, the majority of approvals each year have consistently been renewal applications — filed for workers already inside the country continuing with their current employer or moving to a new one — rather than brand-new hires. In FY2024, 65% of approvals (258,196) were renewals, while only 35% (141,207) represented new initial-employment petitions, the category that is primarily subject to the annual 85,000-visa cap.

H-1B denial rates have fluctuated significantly with changing federal policy over the past decade. Rates peaked at 15% in fiscal year 2018 — including a 24% denial rate for new initial-employment applications — during a period when the first Trump administration tightened the regulatory definition of “specialty occupation” and restricted third-party worksite placements. Denial rates then fell sharply under the Biden administration, dropping to a two-decade low of 2% in fiscal year 2022, partly the result of court rulings that struck down several of the earlier restrictive policies. Whether the renewed enforcement posture and wage-weighted lottery of 2026 will push denial rates back upward is one of the most closely watched open questions for employers currently sponsoring H-1B talent.

Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Pew Research Center analysis of government data

Top H-1B Sponsoring Employers Statistics in the US 2026

Amazon...........                 4,644  ██████████████████████████████████
Meta Platforms...                 1,555  ██████████████
Microsoft........                 1,394  ████████████
Google...........                 1,050  █████████
Top 7 Indian IT Firms Combined... 4,573  ███████████████████████████████

Data source: National Foundation for American Policy analysis of USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub, November 2025

An analysis of the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub shows that Amazon led all U.S. employers in new H-1B petitions approved for initial employment in fiscal year 2025, with 4,644 approvals, followed by Meta Platforms (1,555), Microsoft (1,394), and Google (1,050) — marking the first time these four U.S. technology companies have held the top four spots simultaneously for new H-1B approvals. These companies are hiring heavily against the backdrop of massive artificial intelligence infrastructure investment, with the four firms collectively spending well over $380 billion on AI and related capital expenditures in 2025 alone, driving demand for specialized engineering and research talent that domestic hiring alone cannot fill.

By contrast, India-headquartered IT services firms have seen their share of new H-1B approvals collapse. The top seven Indian-based companies received just 4,573 approvals for initial employment in FY2025 combined — a 70% decline from fiscal year 2015 and 37% fewer than fiscal year 2024 — and only three India-based companies made it into the top 25 H-1B employers list in FY2025, down from six as recently as 2016. Government data also shows the program remains highly dispersed across the wider economy: 28,277 different employers received at least one new H-1B approval in FY2025, with more than half of new petitions going to employers with 15 or fewer approvals, underscoring that despite the headline-grabbing tech giants, H-1B sponsorship extends far beyond a small handful of major companies.

Source: National Foundation for American Policy analysis of USCIS data

H-1B Worker Country of Origin and Education Statistics in the US 2026

India.......................  73%  ███████████████████████████████
China........................ 12%  ██████
All Other Countries Combined. 15%  ███████

Data source: Pew Research Center analysis of USCIS Freedom of Information Act data, September 2024

Government records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to DHS and USCIS confirm that India has been the top country of birth for H-1B workers every year since 2010, and in fiscal year 2023, roughly three-quarters (73%) of all approved H-1B workers were born in India. China ranks a distant second at 12%, and no other single birthplace accounted for even 2% of approved H-1B workers that year, illustrating how concentrated the program’s worker pipeline has become among just two source countries.

On education, government data shows a marked shift toward advanced degrees over the past two decades: the share of H-1B workers whose highest credential is a master’s degree rose from 31% in 2000 to 57% in 2021, while the share holding only a bachelor’s degree fell from 57% to 34% over the same period. Computer-related occupations have been the single largest H-1B job category for more than a decade, accounting for 65% of all approved H-1B workers in fiscal year 2023, with the next-largest category — architecture, engineering, and surveying — representing just 9%. This heavy concentration in technology roles explains why H-1B policy changes so consistently dominate discussion in the American technology sector, and why current minimum wage increase statistics in the US — covering the opposite end of the American wage spectrum — offer a useful contrast to the high-earning H-1B workforce concentrated in computer and engineering occupations.

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of DHS/USCIS Freedom of Information Act data

H-1B Salary and Wage Statistics in the US 2026

Data source: USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub; Pew Research Center analysis of USCIS FOIA data

USCIS wage data confirms that H-1B compensation remains concentrated at the upper end of the U.S. income distribution, consistent with the program’s specialty-occupation requirement. In computer-related occupations — by far the largest H-1B job category — workers approved in fiscal year 2024 earned an average annual salary of $136,000 and a median salary of $125,000, up modestly from the fiscal year 2023 median of $123,600 reported in the same category. Workers in the second-largest category, architecture, engineering, and surveying, reported a median salary of $115,000 in fiscal year 2023, reflecting strong but somewhat lower compensation than the computer-related cluster.

Every H-1B position is legally required to pay at least the higher of the actual wage paid to similarly situated employees or the prevailing wage determined by the Department of Labor for that occupation, region, and experience level — with a general statutory reference point of $60,000 used to determine whether an employer counts as “H-1B dependent” for certain additional recruitment obligations. Because DOL’s proposed March 2026 rule would raise the underlying OEWS percentile bands used to calculate those prevailing wages, most H-1B positions — particularly entry-level Level I roles — would see their required minimum salary increase substantially if the rule is finalized, pushing the wage floor for the program meaningfully closer to the market medians already seen in the computer-related occupation data above.

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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