Two new rules governing H-1B visas took effect last year, targeting the program’s two most persistent criticisms: that foreign workers were taking jobs Americans wanted, and that visa holders were essentially indentured to their employers in order to remain in the country.
So are the changes doing what they were supposed to do?
“It is working as intended,” said Xiao Wang, co-founder and CEO of Boundless Immigration, a Seattle-based startup that provides immigration services
The new rules replaced a random, equal-odds lottery with a weighted system that gives the highest-wage H-1B applicants odds four times better than the lowest-wage workers. Employers also now pay a $100,000 fee per new petition. The changes come as tech-sector layoffs have raised fresh questions about whether the program displaces American workers — one of the criticisms the new rules were designed to address.
Boundless, whose clients include companies applying for H-1B workers, released a report on they 2026 visa application cycle while federal data is still pending. Its findings show the wage weighting is having a real effect — though with tradeoffs:
- Higher-wage workers were selected at significantly higher rates than entry-level candidates: 68% of Level III and 64% of Level IV workers were selected, compared to 40% for Level I and 38% for Level II. That pattern suggests the program is increasingly targeting harder-to-fill roles. Under last year’s random lottery, Boundless client approval rates ranged from 32% to 49% across wage levels with no consistent pattern.
- But the $100,000 fee is proving prohibitive for rural hospitals and healthcare facilities trying to hire doctors and nurses. That’s also true for startups eager to employ international talent, such as foreign-born founders recruiting from their personal networks.
“This cycle was meaningfully different from last year,” said Priyanka Kulkarni, founder and CEO of Casium, a Seattle startup that also provides immigration services. “Registrations were down, and the weighted lottery is doing what it was designed to do. Level III and Level IV selection rates both came in above 50%.”
Many of the early-stage companies that Casium serves came out “in good shape,” she added.
Seattle-area tech companies remain among the program’s largest users. Amazon ranked first among all U.S. employers with 13,265 approved applicants in 2025, and Microsoft ranked third with 6,258, according to federal data. Meta came in second and an Indian IT outsourcing firm placed fourth.
India-born workers have long dominated the program, accounting for 71% of approved visas in late 2023–24. Whether that share will shift under the new rules remains to be seen.
Wang cautioned that companies and workers are still adjusting their strategies, and he expects the numbers to keep moving. The government projected only 15% of Level I applicants would be approved — a share that could fall further from what Boundless observed in the first round.
The wage thresholds could also push employers to inflate salaries in order to move workers into higher tiers and improve their lottery odds. In King County — which includes Seattle, Redmond and Bellevue — the prevailing annual wage for a software engineer is $117,000, while a Level IV worker in the same area earns $212,000. That gap could also push companies to locate H-1B hires in lower-cost cities, choosing Cincinnati over Seattle or San Francisco to hit a given wage tier at less expense.
For highly skilled workers, though, the new system may actually be a draw. Better odds for higher earners make the visa process more predictable — and that predictability could attract top-tier international talent who previously avoided the program’s uncertainty.
“All of a sudden it has turned from a crapshoot of being able to stay in this country to an expectation that you can stay in this country if you’re at a certain wage level,” Wang said.
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