As of 10 November 2026, US Citizenship and Immigration Services is not collecting the $100,000 payment that a presidential proclamation attached to certain new H-1B petitions. That is the practical position created by two court decisions, and it is the position USCIS itself describes on its own alert: the agency says it will comply with the order while it considers next steps, and adds that “if this order is later lifted, DHS still plans to collect the payment.”
The distinction matters for anyone in India planning a filing. The fee is paused, not repealed. The proclamation behind it still exists, the agency has said it intends to collect if it can, and a single appellate decision could restore the requirement with little notice.
What the proclamation required
The proclamation was issued in September 2025. USCIS’s own FAQ states that it required a $100,000 payment to accompany any new H-1B visa petition submitted after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on 21 September 2025, and that it did not apply to renewals or to visas already issued.
That scope is the part most often lost in retelling. The payment was aimed at new petitions in the proclamation’s covered category, not at every H-1B holder in the United States, and not at extensions. A worker renewing status was never the target of the measure, even in the months when it was being enforced.
How the courts got here
On 8 June 2026, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued an order vacating the agency guidance that implemented the payment requirement. The government asked an appeals court to keep the guidance in force while it appealed; that request was refused on 24 July, which is when the pause became durable rather than provisional.
A renewed version of the requirement, issued in a second proclamation in September 2026, was then struck down by a federal court at the end of that month. Reporting on the ruling describes the judge as invalidating the September proclamation along with the earlier version it renewed. The sequence — vacate, refuse to stay, renew, strike down — is why law firms covering the matter have been updating their guidance roughly monthly.
What it means for a filing now
A new H-1B petition filed today is processed on the ordinary fee schedule, without the $100,000 payment. Employers should not be paying it, and applicants should not be paying anyone who claims to be collecting it on the agency’s behalf. If a filing was made during a period when the payment was demanded, the receipt and payment record are worth keeping, because the litigation is not over.
The pause also does not change the parts of the H-1B system that were never the subject of this fight: the annual cap and its lottery, the prevailing-wage and specialty-occupation requirements, the other filing fees, and the consular process for a visa stamp. None of those moved because of this litigation.
What it does not mean
It does not mean the fee has been abolished. USCIS’s language is explicit that the agency still intends to collect if the order is lifted. It does not mean an approval is immune from a later demand: the proclamation’s supporters have lost in court so far, not in Congress, and a rule can be revived by a successful appeal as well as replaced by a new one.
And it does not mean advice is unnecessary. Immigration consequences turn on facts — the petition category, where the beneficiary is, whether the role is cap-subject, what happened at a port of entry — that no news article can assess. An applicant with a live case should take the current status to an immigration attorney rather than to a forum thread, and should treat any “guaranteed” service that offers to navigate the fee as a warning sign.
What to watch next
The appeal, and any fresh proclamation, are the two things that would change the position described here. Until one of them produces enforcement, the operative fact is simple: the payment is not being collected, the underlying policy has not been withdrawn, and the next cap season will be filed under whatever rules exist on the day it opens. This page will date itself the moment that changes, which is why the date at the top of the story is part of the story.
Sources
- USCIS — Presidential Proclamation on Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers (agency statement on the court order)
- USCIS — H-1B FAQ (scope of the $100,000 payment; renewals excluded)
- Forbes — Judge Strikes Down Latest Version of $100,000 H-1B Immigration Fee (1 October 2026)
- University of Michigan International Center — $100,000 H-1B Fee Invalidated (timeline of the orders)
- Ahluwalia Law — where the $100,000 H-1B fee stands in November 2026
