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

The Trump administration’s decision last fall to impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas has produced the first clear evidence of its impact: a steep decline in applications from major employers and the outright exclusion of smaller organizations that once relied on the program to fill specialized roles.

Walmart, one of the country’s largest private employers, submitted only 312 certified H-1B applications in the final three months of 2025, according to Department of Labor data released this month. That figure represents a drop of more than 50 percent from the same period a year earlier and about 40 percent below levels from two years ago. The retail sector’s overall response has been uneven. Competitors such as Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s showed relatively stable filing numbers over the same span, suggesting that Walmart’s retrenchment is not simply a function of broader hiring caution.

On Wall Street the pattern is similarly mixed but points downward. Financial firms that filed the most H-1B applications in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 submitted about 10 percent fewer petitions than in the prior year. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase both recorded year-over-year declines, while Citigroup increased its filings. Banks have long used the visas to bolster technical teams in areas such as software engineering and data analysis. Whether artificial intelligence tools will reduce demand for these workers remains an open question inside those institutions.

The corporate pullback, however, is only part of the story. The fee has effectively locked smaller employers out of the program entirely. Sara McCabe, president of the Wayside Youth & Family Support Network, a Massachusetts nonprofit that runs a private special-education school, said the $100,000 charge made further H-1B hiring impossible. The school currently has five open teaching positions it once filled with educators from Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. Because it cannot staff additional classrooms, Wayside has turned away roughly a dozen students seeking enrollment.

“The $100,000 fee has closed the door for us,” McCabe told reporters.

Since the fee took effect in September, the H-1B program—created three decades ago to allow U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers in specialty occupations—has undergone a fundamental reordering. Large technology companies and consulting firms appear better positioned to absorb the added cost or redirect hiring toward domestic talent and offshore alternatives. Smaller nonprofits, rural hospitals, and community-based organizations have far less flexibility. The result is a visa pipeline that increasingly funnels talent toward the enterprises least likely to face acute shortages while starving institutions that serve vulnerable populations.

Data from the first quarter of the federal fiscal year, which runs from October through December, provides the earliest measurable window into these shifts. The Labor Department’s certification statistics do not capture every variable—some employers may have accelerated filings before the fee took hold, while others may still be adjusting strategies—but the directional change is unmistakable. Applications from nonprofits and educational institutions, which historically filed in smaller volumes but with high reliance on the program, have fallen off sharply.

The administration has framed the higher fee as a way to prioritize American workers and raise revenue. Yet the policy’s design treats every new H-1B petition with the same blunt surcharge, regardless of the employer’s size, mission, or the local labor market’s realities. Rural hospitals struggling to recruit nurses, schools seeking bilingual special-education teachers, and small engineering firms in midsize cities all face the same price tag as multinational banks.

Critics argue this one-size-fits-all approach ignores the granular ways the American economy depends on skilled immigration. Teachers trained in specialized methods for children with emotional or behavioral challenges cannot be conjured overnight from the domestic labor pool. The same holds for certain nursing specialties and technical roles in sectors that never commanded the six-figure salaries common in Big Tech.

Early evidence suggests the fee is producing exactly the stratification that opponents predicted. Large, profitable corporations are calibrating their use of the program, sometimes reducing it, sometimes shifting to other visa categories or remote workers abroad. Nonprofits and smaller providers, already operating on thin margins, have simply exited. The Wayside school’s experience is not an outlier; similar stories have emerged from pediatric hospitals in the Midwest and community colleges in the South.

Whether these changes will ultimately produce higher wages or more opportunities for U.S. workers in the affected fields remains to be seen. What is already visible is a contraction in the flow of specialized talent to precisely those corners of the economy that have historically struggled to compete with Silicon Valley for skilled employees. The H-1B program was never perfect, but its rapid remaking through a steep financial barrier has delivered an uneven shock—felt most acutely by the institutions least equipped to withstand it.

As more quarterly data arrive, policymakers will be able to measure the full breadth of the shift. For now, the initial returns show a program in transition, with Walmart tightening its use, Wall Street recalibrating, and community-serving organizations finding the door locked.