H-1B Filings Drop Sharply at Walmart, Goldman Sachs After New Visa Fees

New federal data shows that major American employers are sharply curtailing their use of the H-1B skilled-worker visa program after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new applications last fall. The reductions are especially pronounced at Walmart and several large banks, while the higher costs appear to have entirely excluded many nonprofits, schools and rural hospitals that previously depended on the visas to fill specialized roles.

Walmart filed only 312 certified H-1B applications during the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, which covers October through December 2025. That figure is more than 50 percent lower than the roughly 860 applications the company submitted in the same period a year earlier and about 40 percent below its filings from two years ago, according to Department of Labor statistics compiled by Business Insider. By contrast, other large retailers including Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s showed relatively stable numbers, suggesting the drop at Walmart is not simply the result of a broad slowdown in retail hiring.

The pattern is similar but more varied on Wall Street. Overall, the financial firms that file the most H-1B petitions submitted about 10 percent fewer applications than in the prior year. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase recorded noticeable declines, while Citigroup increased its filings. Banks have long used the visas to expand teams in technology, data analysis and quantitative roles. Industry analysts note that rapid advances in artificial intelligence could further dampen demand for some of these positions, though it remains unclear how much that factor influenced the latest numbers.

The fee, which took effect in September, has produced a more fundamental change in who can participate in a program created three decades ago to help employers hire talent when domestic pools fall short. Reporting by The New York Times illustrates how the policy has effectively closed the door for smaller organizations. Sara McCabe, president of the Wayside Youth & Family Support Network in Massachusetts, said her nonprofit can no longer afford the visas. The organization operates a private special-education school that has struggled for years to recruit enough qualified teachers locally. It typically turned to H-1B hires from Brazil, Mexico and Germany. With five teaching positions now vacant, the school has turned away roughly a dozen students who sought to enroll because it lacks the staff to open additional classes.

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

Similar effects are being felt at rural hospitals and other nonprofits that serve vulnerable populations but lack the financial cushion of publicly traded corporations. The result is a re-sorting of the program’s beneficiaries. Large technology companies and consulting firms, which have deeper resources and often higher-margin businesses, may continue to absorb the new costs or shift toward alternative immigration pathways. Smaller employers, by contrast, are largely sidelined. This shift risks exacerbating shortages in fields such as special education, nursing and mental-health services where foreign-trained professionals have long helped fill gaps.

The Trump administration’s move was framed as a crackdown on a visa program that critics argue has been used to displace American workers and suppress wages, particularly in the technology sector. Proponents maintain that higher barriers will force companies to invest more in domestic training and recruitment. Early evidence, however, shows the policy is not uniformly reducing reliance on foreign talent so much as concentrating it among those who can pay. The Department of Labor data released so far captures only the first few months of the new regime, yet the magnitude of the declines at major filers suggests the price increase is altering hiring calculations across multiple industries.

Broader economic context matters. Many large employers have already slowed overall headcount growth amid uncertainty about interest rates, consumer spending and the pace of artificial-intelligence adoption. In that environment, the added visa fee may simply accelerate decisions companies were already contemplating. For nonprofits operating on thin margins, however, there is little room to maneuver. When they cannot hire, the consequences land directly on students, patients and communities rather than on corporate balance sheets.

Whether the changes ultimately produce higher wages or more training opportunities for American workers remains an open question that will require longer-term study. What is already clear is that the fee has introduced a blunt financial filter into a system that once spread access more widely, if imperfectly. Schools that cannot staff classrooms, hospitals that cannot fill nursing shifts and small organizations that cannot compete with corporate budgets are absorbing costs the policy did not intend to impose.

As additional quarters of data accumulate, lawmakers and regulators will face pressure to assess whether the program’s transformation is achieving its stated goals or simply reallocating opportunity upward. For now, the early returns show a skilled-immigration system that is smaller, more expensive and markedly less accessible to the kinds of employers that serve populations often overlooked in national economic debates.