Published: October 2026 | SkilledB Overseas Education
While the Duration of Status litigation has dominated headlines this week (covered in our companion blog), a quieter but potentially even more consequential development has been unfolding in parallel: proposed six-figure fees on both Optional Practical Training (OPT) and H-1B visa petitions. If either of these proposals becomes final, they could fundamentally reshape the economics of studying in the US. Here’s exactly where things stand as of this week.
The OPT Fee Proposal: What We Know
On September 17, 2026, the White House cleared a Department of Homeland Security proposal to impose a new fee on OPT — the post-graduation work authorization that allows F-1 graduates to work in their field for 12 months (extendable to 3 years total for STEM graduates through the STEM OPT extension). The exact fee amount has not yet been officially published, but it follows widespread reporting that the administration is considering a $100,000 fee — a figure that would represent an almost unimaginable increase from OPT’s current, nominal application cost.
About 300,000 F-1 students held employment authorization through OPT last year, according to Bloomberg Law reporting. A fee anywhere near the reported $100,000 figure would be, in the words of multiple immigration law analysts, “devastating” for early-career international graduates — effectively pricing most students out of using the very mechanism that bridges graduation and long-term US employment.
Notably, ICE’s director has reportedly branded OPT a “magnet for fraud” — language that signals the administration’s underlying justification for this dramatic fee proposal, framing it as a fraud-prevention measure rather than a revenue mechanism, even though the scale of the proposed fee far exceeds any reasonable fraud-prevention cost structure.
What Happens Next for the OPT Fee
Once the proposed rule formally clears federal review, it must be published in the Federal Register with a public comment period of 30 to 60 days. Only after DHS reviews those comments and publishes a final rule with a specific implementation date would the fee actually take effect. As of this week, students should not assume they are required to pay any fee for OPT — the rule has cleared White House review but has not yet been finalized or made payable.
The H-1B Fee Situation: A More Complicated Legal Picture
The H-1B fee story is genuinely more complex, involving multiple overlapping proposals and court challenges:
The original $100,000 proclamation: The administration previously issued a presidential proclamation imposing a $100,000 entry fee on H-1B visa holders, which applied to new H-1B petitions filed after a specific 2025 date. This proclamation-based fee was challenged in court.
Court intervention: On October 1, 2026, a California federal court issued a preliminary injunction against this $100,000 H-1B fee — blocking its enforcement while litigation continues, similar in spirit to the Massachusetts court’s intervention on the Duration of Status rule.
The new $103,265 regulatory proposal: Rather than relying solely on the proclamation (now tied up in court), DHS has separately proposed a $103,265 fee through a formal regulatory process, applying to all H-1B petitions subject to the annual statutory cap — including those for workers already inside the US, not just new entrants from abroad. This marks a genuinely significant expansion: the original proclamation-based fee applied primarily to new entry, while this regulatory proposal would extend to H-1B transfers and extensions for individuals already working in the US under the program.
The legal argument DHS is making: Unlike the proclamation (which relied on presidential executive authority and was successfully challenged), this new $103,265 fee relies on statutory authority to recoup the costs of services — a different and potentially more legally defensible foundation, since Congress has historically authorized fee-funded adjudication systems for immigration services.
Industry pushback: A public comment period on this DHS proposal closed in late September 2026, during which healthcare providers and numerous other employer groups warned the fee would harm innovation and patient care, arguing it likely violates the law without clear Congressional authorization. The US Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of immigration policy specifically argued that Congress already created a detailed fee-funded adjudication system with its own cost structure, including fraud prevention fees, and that this new proposal oversteps that existing framework.
Why This Matters So Much for Indian Students Specifically
India is the single largest source of H-1B petitions globally, and Indian students form a substantial share of the US OPT population, particularly in STEM fields where the 3-year STEM OPT extension has long been a critical bridge to H-1B sponsorship. If both fees were to take effect at anything close to the reported figures:
- The OPT-to-H-1B pipeline that has defined the US study-abroad value proposition for Indian STEM students for nearly two decades would be fundamentally disrupted. A combined cost approaching or exceeding $200,000 across both fees would be far beyond what most individual graduates or even most employers would be willing or able to absorb for early-career hires.
- Employers would likely become far more selective about H-1B sponsorship, reserving it for only the most senior, highest-value hires rather than entry-level graduates — compounding the entry-level hiring challenges we’ve detailed in our broader 2026 job market analysis.
- The relative attractiveness of alternative destinations — Canada, the UK, Australia, and especially Germany with its EU Blue Card pathway — would increase substantially for students specifically prioritizing a clear, affordable post-study work-to-residency pipeline.
What’s Genuinely Uncertain Right Now
It’s important to be precise about what we do and don’t know as of this week:
- Neither fee is currently in effect. The OPT fee has cleared White House review but awaits formal publication and a comment period. The H-1B proclamation-based fee is blocked by a court injunction. The new $103,265 regulatory H-1B fee has closed its comment period but has not been finalized.
- Who would actually pay these fees is not yet confirmed. For the OPT fee specifically, some legal experts believe universities might end up absorbing some portion of the cost, or that employers hiring OPT participants might be expected to cover it — though no official guidance confirms this, and individual students bearing the cost directly remains a real possibility under current reporting.
- Legal challenges to both fees are already underway or anticipated, following the same pattern we’ve seen with the Duration of Status rule — aggressive executive and regulatory action, followed by litigation that has, in multiple instances this year, succeeded in at least temporarily blocking implementation.
How Should Prospective Students Respond to This Uncertainty?
1. Don’t abandon US plans based on proposed, not-yet-effective fees
Both fees remain proposals or are subject to active injunctions. Making a dramatic decision — such as abandoning well-advanced US application plans — based on fees that may never take effect in their currently reported form would be premature.
2. Build genuine contingency planning into your destination strategy
Given the pattern of regulatory volatility in US immigration policy throughout 2026, students should seriously consider parallel applications to other strong destinations (as detailed throughout our blog series — Canada, UK, Australia, Germany) rather than placing all of their planning exclusively on a US pathway that carries genuine, unresolved cost uncertainty.
3. Prioritize employers with strong sponsorship track records and genuine commitment
If you do proceed with US plans, research which employers have historically absorbed visa-related costs for their international hires (larger technology companies, Big 4 consulting and accounting firms, and major healthcare systems have generally been more willing to absorb such costs than smaller employers) — this could become a genuinely decisive factor in your job search if either fee is finalized.
4. Stay closely connected to current, verified guidance rather than social media speculation
Given how quickly this situation is evolving — with court rulings, White House clearances, and public comment periods all moving in parallel — rely on your university’s international office, licensed immigration attorneys, and verified reporting from established immigration law publications rather than informal social media discussion, which has historically amplified both premature panic and false reassurance during similarly fluid periods.
Who Would Realistically Bear These Costs?
One question we field constantly from families at SkilledB is whether a $100,000 OPT fee or a $103,265 H-1B fee would actually fall on the student or worker directly, or whether employers would be expected to absorb it. The honest answer, as of this week, is that this remains genuinely unresolved for the OPT fee specifically. For H-1B petitions, employer sponsorship has traditionally covered most filing-related costs as a matter of both practice and, in many cases, legal requirement under existing labor condition application rules — meaning a fee of this scale, if finalized, would most likely fall primarily on employers rather than individual workers for the H-1B side specifically. This is precisely why industry groups, including healthcare providers and the US Chamber of Commerce, have been so vocal in their opposition: a fee at this scale represents a direct, substantial cost to the employer’s hiring decision, not an abstract policy figure.
For OPT specifically, since OPT itself is a work authorization tied to the student’s F-1 status rather than an employer-sponsored petition in the same way H-1B is, there’s more genuine ambiguity about who would bear this cost if the rule is finalized as reported. Some analysts have speculated that employers hiring OPT participants might voluntarily absorb this cost to remain competitive in attracting international talent, while others note that without a clear regulatory requirement forcing employer absorption, many students could find themselves personally responsible — a scenario that would be genuinely prohibitive for the vast majority of early-career graduates.
The Broader Pattern: 2026 as a Year of Immigration Fee Escalation
Beyond OPT and H-1B specifically, 2026 has seen a broader pattern of fee-based immigration policy tools across the Trump administration’s approach — using cost barriers rather than outright prohibitions to reduce program utilization. This is a meaningfully different policy instrument than the kind of categorical restrictions we’ve seen in some other areas (like the UK’s Graduate Route length reduction or Australia’s enrollment caps), and it carries a distinct practical implication: these fees, if finalized, would disproportionately affect students and employers with fewer financial resources, rather than applying uniformly regardless of circumstance. This is worth understanding as a broader policy pattern, not just an isolated OPT or H-1B development.
Lessons From the Duration-of-Status Litigation for These Fee Proposals
Our companion blog this week covers in detail how a federal court blocked the Duration of Status rule just one day before its effective date, following a successful legal challenge from a coalition including the Presidents’ Alliance, NAFSA, AFT, and UAW. That same coalition, along with other higher education and labor advocacy groups, has signaled they are prepared to challenge both the OPT and H-1B fee proposals through similar legal avenues if and when they are finalized. Given the court’s finding that the Duration of Status rule was “arbitrary and capricious,” and given the substantial legal arguments already raised by employer groups against the H-1B fee’s statutory basis, there is genuine reason to believe these fee proposals, if finalized at anything close to their reported figures, would face immediate and potentially successful legal challenges as well.
This matters for your planning because it suggests a realistic scenario: these fees might be formally published, generate significant short-term anxiety and media coverage, and then face injunctions or delays similar to what we’ve already seen play out with Duration of Status and the original H-1B proclamation fee. This is not a guarantee — courts could equally uphold either or both fees — but it’s a genuinely relevant pattern to understand rather than assuming either proposal’s reported figures represent a certain, final outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: If I’m already on OPT right now, would a new fee apply retroactively to me?
Based on standard regulatory practice, new fees typically apply only to future applications filed after a rule’s effective date, not retroactively to authorizations already granted. However, this has not been officially confirmed for either proposal, so monitor official guidance closely if you currently hold OPT status.
Q: Is it worth delaying my US application to see how this resolves?
Given application and visa timelines already discussed throughout our blog series, and given that neither fee is currently in effect, we generally don’t recommend delaying a well-prepared application purely based on these proposals. Instead, build contingency planning (alternative destinations, employer research) alongside your continued US application process.
Q: How does the California court injunction on the H-1B proclamation fee relate to the separate $103,265 regulatory proposal?
These are two distinct legal pathways to a similar outcome. The original $100,000 proclamation fee (now enjoined by a California court) relied on direct presidential executive authority. The newer $103,265 regulatory proposal relies on a different legal foundation — statutory fee-recovery authority — meaning the California injunction does not automatically block this separate regulatory proposal, which follows its own independent rulemaking and potential litigation timeline.
Q: Could these fees be successfully challenged in court like the Duration of Status rule was?
It’s genuinely possible, given the pattern we’ve seen this year of successful legal challenges to aggressive executive immigration actions. However, the $103,265 H-1B proposal’s reliance on statutory fee-recovery authority (as opposed to broader executive proclamation power) may represent a more legally defensible approach from the government’s perspective — though industry groups have already signaled they view even this approach as legally vulnerable.
Q: Should I avoid STEM fields given STEM OPT’s central role in this situation?
Not necessarily — STEM fields remain strong both for US and international job markets regardless of how this specific fee situation resolves. If US-specific sponsorship costs become prohibitive, the same STEM credentials remain highly valuable for opportunities in Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, and other destinations we’ve covered extensively in this blog series.
What International Education Advocacy Groups Are Doing Right Now
Organizations like NAFSA (the Association of International Educators) and the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration — the same coalition behind the successful Duration of Status legal challenge — have publicly signaled active opposition to both fee proposals, submitting formal comments during the applicable public comment periods and preparing for potential litigation should either rule be finalized. These organizations represent a genuinely influential constituency within US higher education policy, given their direct ties to university international offices, and their track record this year of successfully challenging the Duration of Status rule gives their opposition to these fee proposals genuine, demonstrated weight rather than purely symbolic pushback. Monitoring statements and updates from these organizations, alongside your university’s own international office communications, provides some of the most reliable, timely insight into how these proposals are likely to develop over the coming months.
Final Word
Two proposed six-figure fees — one for OPT, one for H-1B — are moving through the US regulatory and legal system simultaneously this week, and both carry the potential to fundamentally reshape the cost-benefit calculation of studying in the US for Indian students. Neither is currently in effect, and both face genuine legal uncertainty. The right response isn’t panic or premature abandonment of US plans — it’s informed, flexible planning that keeps your options open across multiple strong destinations while this situation continues to develop.
Need help navigating US visa cost uncertainty alongside your study abroad plans?
SkilledB Overseas Education — Madurai’s trusted partner for multi-country study abroad strategy, keeping you informed on fast-moving US, UK, Canada, and Australia policy developments.
📍 Madurai | 📞 +91 98840 15188
Talk to our counselors today for a flexible, well-informed study abroad plan that isn’t dependent on a single country’s uncertain policy outcome.