A pending Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule, listed as a short-term priority in the Trump administration's 2026 Unified Regulatory Agenda, would extend the 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee to H-1B and L-1 extension petitions for the first time. For the roughly 226,359 Indian nationals who received H-1B extension approvals in FY2025, that means a new $4,000 recurring charge lands on their employer's books every three years. For the HR and mobility teams managing workforce rosters at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple, the arithmetic of retaining existing H-1B talent is about to shift in a measurable way.

What the rule actually does

The 9-11 Response fee is not a new invention. It was authorized under Public Law 114-113 and already applies to H-1B and L-1 petitions filed by qualifying large employers, but only when sponsoring a worker for an initial period of stay or when the employee changes employers. The change DHS is now pursuing is a scope expansion: the same fee would apply to every extension petition filed by those same employers.

The DHS rulemaking notice states that the agency is amending and clarifying regulations to specify that the 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fees will apply to all H-1B and L-1 extension petitions in addition to all previously covered H-1B and L-1 petitions.

The employer threshold that triggers the fee has not changed. It applies to US employers with more than 50 employees where over 50% of the workforce holds H-1B or L-1 status. That threshold is narrow on paper but captures a well-known roster in practice: the dominant US tech platforms and the large Indian IT services firms operating in the United States. L-1 visas cover executives, managers, and employees with specialized knowledge transferred from overseas offices to the US, which is why the $4,500 L-1 renewal fee is a separate line from the $4,000 H-1B figure.

The revenue target is specific. DHS estimates the expansion would generate roughly $157.3 million a year in additional revenue, earmarked for the US biometric entry-exit system. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was first published jointly by DHS and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in June 2024. The final rule was originally expected in April 2025, was removed from the regulatory agenda, and has since been re-added as a short-term priority. Before publication, it must clear review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

The scale of the population affected matters because renewals are where the volume sits. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data shows that 291,542 of the 406,348 H-1B petitions approved in FY2025, close to 72%, were for continuing employment. Indians accounted for 226,359 of those extensions, representing 77.6% of the total. China ranked second with 31,581 approvals (10.8%), followed by the Philippines, Canada, South Korea, and Mexico.

Will this take effect?

The litigation history is worth knowing before treating a July finalization as certain. DHS finalized a similar policy in 2020 but never implemented it after a court blocked it. More recently, a federal appeals court declined to pause a lower court order that struck down the Trump administration's separate $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas. The legal environment around H-1B fee-setting is actively contested, and July should be read as a target date rather than a firm deadline.

That said, the current proposal operates differently from the $100,000 fee attempt. DHS is arguing for a scope extension under an existing statutory authority, Public Law 114-113, rather than creating a new charge from scratch. That is a narrower legal target, and the proposal appears with short-term priority status in the 2026 Unified Regulatory Agenda. The practical planning posture is to model for implementation while keeping an eye on the litigation timeline.

For employees on H-1B or L-1

For workers currently on H-1B or L-1 status at a qualifying employer, the change converts what has historically been a routine administrative process into a recurring cost event on the employer's books. Every three-year extension now carries an incremental $4,000 (H-1B) or $4,500 (L-1) charge, and that recurs for as long as the worker remains on the visa. It is not large relative to a senior engineer's total compensation package, but it is large enough to sharpen how HR weighs each individual renewal decision.

Several concrete steps are worth taking before the rule finalizes:

• Confirm whether your employer qualifies. The 50-employee, 50%-visa-holder threshold is public and specific. Large US tech platforms and Indian IT services firms operating in the United States almost certainly qualify. Mid-sized product companies or US-headquartered firms with more diverse workforce compositions may not. The answer changes your leverage.
• Know your extension filing window. H-1B extensions can be filed up to six months before the current status expires. If the rule finalizes mid-cycle, some employers may accelerate filings to avoid the new fee. Understanding your own timeline puts you ahead of that decision.
• Use the next 12 months as a salary benchmarking window. Your employer is about to put a dollar figure on what it costs to keep you. Running a parallel assessment of your market value, using verified compensation data rather than informal comparisons, gives you something concrete to bring to that conversation. The more specific the numbers, the more useful the discussion.
• Ask directly about your green card queue position. Employers who absorb a recurring H-1B fee have a stronger financial incentive to move high-retention workers off H-1B and onto permanent residence. That conversation is worth having now rather than waiting for the rule to publish.

For HR, mobility and total-rewards teams

For HR and global mobility teams whose workforce already triggers the 50-plus / 50-percent test, the immediate exercise is budgetary. Every three-year extension cycle now carries an incremental $4,000 per H-1B and $4,500 per L-1 that was not previously scoped into renewal planning. The scale of that exposure at the largest US employers is material.

National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) figures drawn from USCIS data put Amazon at 14,532 approved H-1B petitions for continuing employment in FY2025, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (5,293), Microsoft (4,863), Meta (4,740), Apple (4,610), and Google (4,509). NFAP notes these are approved petitions rather than unique employees, since a single H-1B worker can receive multiple approvals in a year due to transfers or amended filings. Even with that caveat applied, the recurring fee exposure across a workforce of this size is a number that belongs in the FY2026 and FY2027 budget models now, not after the rule publishes.

Four decisions that reward early attention:

• Model on a three-year cycle, not an annual basis. The fee hits at each extension, so the true unit economics are the fee amortized across the expected retention window. For a worker you project staying five years, that is one incremental fee. For a ten-year retention, it is two. Building that into per-employee cost modeling changes how you compare sponsorship cost against replacement cost.
• Resolve the cost-bearing question early. The fee falls on the employer as a matter of law, and passing it directly to workers is restricted. The secondary effects, including tighter merit budgets, more selective sponsorship decisions, or slower promotion timelines, are entirely within management discretion but will surface in retention data whether they are planned for or not. SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) guidance on total rewards structuring is a useful reference for framing the internal policy.
• Front-load green card sponsorship for high-retention roles. Moving a worker from H-1B to permanent residence eliminates the recurring fee permanently. For roles where you have strong retention intent, the math increasingly favors investing earlier in the permanent residence process rather than paying the fee in perpetuity.
• Communicate proactively to your H-1B workforce. H-1B workers will read coverage of this rule. A clear internal statement on how the firm is treating the change, issued before the rule finalizes, costs very little and signals organizational stability. Waiting until after finalization to address the question reads, to many workers, as an implicit signal that renewal decisions are under active review.

The wider signal for US workforce planning

The story here is not really about a single $4,000 charge. The pattern that has emerged across the past 18 months, the failed $100,000 new-visa fee, the biometric entry-exit expansion, and the repeated removal and re-addition of this rule to the regulatory agenda, points to a structural shift in how the US government is pricing recurring access to global talent. When recurring costs become less predictable, employers respond by shortening their planning horizons, and workers respond by opening market conversations earlier.

For workers currently on H-1B status, the negotiating position available today is unlikely to be stronger in 12 months. For HR leaders running workforce models that depend on this population, the period between now and rule finalization is the lower-noise window to have the difficult retention and compensation conversations. The data to have those conversations clearly is available now, and the cost of waiting is measurable.