PTI
Washington
The US on Monday published new rules that would require large employers to pay a fee of USD 4,000 for H-1B and USD 4,500 for L-1 applications for extension of visas of their employees.
Earlier, these fees were applicable only for initial H-1B and L-1 petitions or if the applicants changed jobs.
Major Indian IT services and consulting providers rely on a blended onshore-offshore staffing model, bringing them within the ambit of the changed rule.
The 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee, applicable to employers with 50 or more employees in the US if more than 50 per cent are in H-1B or L-1 nonimmigrant status, will come into effect from September 9, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.
The rule is likely to increase immigration sponsorship costs for technology companies; global consulting firms; IT services providers; multinational employers; and other organisations with a large number of H-1B and L-1 employees.
Organisations filing routine extension requests for the same employee will now face additional filing costs that previously may not have applied.
DHS clarified that amended petitions that do not request an extension of status are exempt from the expanded fee requirement.
DHS estimates that closing this administrative gap and collecting USD 4,000 to USD 4,500 on every extension petition will generate approximately USD 157.3 million annually.
These revenues are statutorily designated to fund the US Customs and Border Protection Air and Sea Biometric Entry-Exit System, an automated biometric tracking framework prioritised under administration national security directives.
Congress created the fee in December 2015 as a successor to an earlier supplemental fee. The money was intended to support biometric entry-exit programmes that had been mandated for national security purposes.
For an IT services firm managing several thousand onshore Indian engineers on active H-1B or L-1 status, the new rule converts an intermittent expense into an annual multimillion-dollar operational fee.
