India, Sept. 22 -- US president Donald Trump announced major changes to the H-1B visa programme on Friday. An HT analysis shows that it amounts to effectively killing the programme. The new visa fees of $100,000 announced by Trump is more than the median annual salary of a fresh H-1B visa holder and more than 80% of the average annual salary of all H-1B visa holders. As the biggest beneficiary of the programme, India stands to lose the most. Perhaps more than the 50% tariffs Trump has put on Indian exports. This is yet another debilitating blow to Indo-US relations: over 28 years, Indians have received 60% of all H-1B visas issued. The Financial Times describes it in the simplest manner. "The six-figure ($100,000) application fee - which (US Secretary of Commerce Howard) Lutnick said employers would have to pay annually - marks a departure for the government, which currently charges $215 to register for an H-1B visa lottery and an additional $780 for employers that sponsor visa applicants. A White House executive order states that the payment is an application fee and does not mention an annual payment". In addition to the H-1Bs, the Trump administration has also announced a gold-card visa scheme where individuals and corporations can pay $1 million and $2 million to get a US visa. In rupee terms this is almost Rs.9 crore and Rs.18 crore for a visa. Trump has just announced it. He often changes his mind. But there is good reason to believe that the new H-1B visa regime is tantamount to killing the programme. This is because the visa fees might have become equal to almost a full-year wage of the average H-1B employee. For somebody seeking their first employment under the H-1B visa, the visa fee is now more than the annual wage. According to a 2025 report by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) the median wage for initial employment under the H-1B visa programme was $97,000.This number was slightly higher for continuing H-1B visas ($132,000) giving an average amount of $120,000. If the visa fees become higher than the annual salary of the employee for whom the visa is being sought, it is extremely unlikely that the applications will even be made. (See Chart 1) Of the 399,395 H-1B visas approved in 2024 (this is the number of petitions approved by USCIS; and includes the people living in the US who change their status), Indians received an overwhelming 71%. China was a distant second with just 11.7%. India has dominated the number of H-1B visas issued as well. The Bureau of Consular Affairs of the US Department of State gives data on visa issuances by nationality from 1997 to 2024. This shows that of the total 4.1 million H-1B visas issued in 28 years, 2.5 million or 60% have been issued to Indians. China is a distant second with a 9% share, and third placed United Kingdom has just a 2.6% share. India's share is almost thrice of the other nine countries in the top ten for the 1997-2024 period. This share would even be higher if India's share was not relatively lower earlier (although it was the top ranked country every year). It is only in 2007 that India's share breached the 50% mark and it would take another six years before that share breached the 60% mark. India's share peaked in 2022, when it reached 81%, after which it decreased to 69% by 2024. (See Chart 2A, 2B) Of all the non-immigrant visas issued by the US -- issued to people who do not intend to live permanently there and could be travelling even for treatment or tourism -- India is the only country which uses a high share of H-1B visas. The top five countries by the number of non-immigrant visas issued in the 1997-2024 period are Mexico, China, India, Brazil, and Colombia. Less than 2% of visas issued to the other four countries were H-1B visas. For India, this number is 13.9%. In fact, no other countries' share (including those not ranked high) goes beyond 6%. Clearly, the new regime will hurt India the most. (See Chart 3) This can be seen from data on India's outsourcing and business-process giants. In FY 2024 alone, Infosys (8,137 visas) and TCS (5,272) had more approved H-1B beneficiaries than the Philippines - the third-largest country of origin after India and China. Yet for many of their employees, the proposed $100,000 fee would match, or even exceed, their entire annual pay. HT's analysis of certified labour condition applications (LCAs) filed in the third quarter of 2024-25 shows how stark the gap is. Employers must file LCAs with the US Department of Labor whenever they hire, renew, amend or transfer H-1B workers, disclosing details such as job title, work location and wage range. Based on this data, HT calculated the typical pay offered by major Indian firms by calculating the median of annual salary ranges reported in each application, and found that the median salary offered by India's biggest IT outsourcers ranges from just over $89,000 at Wipro to just under $113,000 at LTIMindtree. By contrast, AI start-ups such as OpenAI and Anthropic are offering average pay packets north of $300,000. To be sure, these numbers also make it evident that a $100,000 fee for an H-1B visa is not exactly a drop in the bucket for even high-tech employers. (See Chart 4)...