H-1B Filings Drop Sharply at Walmart, Goldman as New Fees Bite

President Donald Trump's overhaul of the H-1B visa program is delivering an early blow to the corporate habit of importing cheaper foreign labor instead of hiring Americans. New Department of Labor data shows Walmart alone filed just 312 certified H-1B applications in the final three months of 2025. That represents a drop of more than half from roughly 860 applications during the same period a year earlier and about 40 percent below levels from two years ago. The decline comes after the administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas last September, raising the cost of bypassing domestic workers.

The numbers mark the first clear snapshot of how Trump's changes are reshaping hiring across industries that have grown dependent on the program. For decades the H-1B system has functioned as a pipeline for companies to bring in skilled foreigners, often at wages that undercut what Americans demand. Retail giants, banks, tech firms, hospitals, and nonprofits all leaned on it. Now the fee is forcing a reckoning.

Walmart's sharp pullback stands out even among other retailers. Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's kept their application volumes relatively steady over the same timeframe. The contrast suggests the nation's largest private employer is making a faster adjustment, perhaps recognizing that the days of easy access to imported staff are ending. The program has long drawn criticism for allowing massive corporations to prioritize cost savings over investment in American talent. When companies can simply file paperwork for workers from overseas, the incentive to raise pay, improve training, or recruit from U.S. communities disappears.

Wall Street is showing a similar pattern. Major financial firms that filed the most H-1B applications in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 submitted about 10 percent fewer than during the same period the year before. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase both recorded noticeable declines. Citigroup went the other direction and increased its petitions, but the overall trend among the biggest players points down. These banks routinely use the visas to bulk up technical and analytics roles. The drop suggests even they are rethinking strategies that once treated foreign labor as an endless resource.

The changes are not landing evenly. Smaller organizations without the financial cushion of a Walmart or Goldman Sachs are getting locked out entirely. The New York Times reported on the Wayside Youth & Family Support Network, a Massachusetts nonprofit that runs a special education school. President Sara McCabe said the group has five open teaching positions it would normally fill with H-1B hires from Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. The $100,000 fee made that impossible. As a result the school has turned away a dozen students who needed services it can no longer provide.

Rural hospitals, smaller nonprofits, and certain school districts face the same barrier. The program that once offered them a narrow path to specialized workers now sits behind a price wall they cannot scale. This outcome reveals the blunt nature of the reform. While it successfully discourages the largest corporate users, it also squeezes entities that never abused the system on the same scale as Silicon Valley or major banks.

Trump's team designed the fee to make the program less attractive as a wage-suppression tool. For years critics, including the president during his first term and campaign, highlighted cases where American workers were replaced by H-1B holders who accepted lower salaries and fewer benefits. The Disney scandals of the last decade, in which U.S. employees trained their own foreign replacements before being shown the door, crystallized the problem for many voters. Those stories fueled the America First view that immigration policy should serve citizens first, not corporate balance sheets.

Early evidence indicates the policy is working in that direction. Companies that once treated H-1B as routine business expense are now weighing the real cost. Some may turn to domestic hiring. Others could accelerate investments in artificial intelligence and automation to reduce headcount needs altogether. The financial industry data hints at this possibility. Banks have poured resources into AI-driven trading, compliance, and customer service tools. If technology can handle more of the workload, the demand for both American and foreign technical staff may shrink further.

Still, the transition carries friction. Nonprofits like Wayside are not multinational profit machines. They serve vulnerable populations and already struggle to compete on salary. McCabe's frustration is understandable. Yet the deeper question remains whether constant reliance on foreign recruitment has prevented these organizations from building stronger pipelines within the United States. Teacher training programs, higher pay scales funded by efficiency reforms, and targeted scholarships could address shortages without adding to the flow of guest workers.

The first-quarter figures represent only the beginning. Fiscal year 2026 data will continue to roll in, showing whether the decline at Walmart, Goldman, and JPMorgan deepens or rebounds. What seems clear already is that the old equilibrium has broken. For years the H-1B program operated as a quiet subsidy to corporate America, allowing executives to keep labor costs artificially low while lecturing the public about skills gaps. Trump's fee disrupts that arrangement. It raises the price of admission and forces a conversation about who the economy should serve.

American workers who watched their wages stagnate while companies bragged about diversity hires have every reason to see this as progress. The program was never meant to become a permanent revolving door that displaces citizens. If the new costs compel businesses to compete for American talent rather than avoid it, the country will be stronger for it. The pain felt by smaller nonprofits is real, but it should not obscure the larger failure that made such dependence necessary in the first place. Decades of policy that favored global labor markets over domestic workers produced these shortages. Correcting that course was never going to be painless.

The data from Walmart, the banks, and the struggling school in Massachusetts all tell pieces of the same story. The H-1B tap is tightening. How companies, nonprofits, and policymakers respond will determine whether this becomes a genuine reset for the American worker or simply another reshuffling of the same failed incentives. So far the numbers suggest President Trump's changes are having the sobering effect he intended.