H-1B Filings Drop Sharply at Walmart and Banks After Trump Visa Fees

Walmart and several of the nation's largest banks have sharply reduced their applications for H-1B visas in the wake of policy changes that made the program significantly more expensive. The decline offers the clearest early evidence of how employers are adjusting to the Trump administration's decision last September to impose a $100,000 fee on new visas for foreign skilled workers.

Department of Labor data for the first quarter of fiscal 2026, covering October through December 2025, shows Walmart filed 312 certified H-1B applications. That total is more than 50 percent below the roughly 860 applications the company submitted in the same period a year earlier and about 40 percent lower than levels from two years ago. The retail giant's reduction aligns with a broader slowdown in technology-related hiring that has now reached even large non-tech employers.

The pattern repeated on Wall Street. Major financial firms that are traditionally heavy users of the program filed about 10 percent fewer certified H-1B and related applications than in the prior year's first quarter. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase recorded noticeable drops, though Citigroup increased its petitions. Banks often turn to H-1B hires to expand technical and analytical teams, but rapid advances in artificial intelligence may be reducing demand for some of those roles and complicating long-term planning.

The $100,000 fee has altered the economics of a visa program created three decades ago to allow companies to bring in workers for specialized jobs that ostensibly cannot be filled domestically. By raising the direct cost of each new hire, the change has forced employers to weigh whether the expense is justified or whether domestic alternatives make more sense.

Smaller organizations have felt the impact most acutely. Nonprofits, rural hospitals, and schools with tight budgets lack the financial cushion available to large corporations. The New York Times reported that the Wayside Youth & Family Support Network, a Massachusetts nonprofit that runs a private special education school, has stopped using the program entirely. President Sara McCabe said the organization maintains five unfilled teaching positions it once filled with educators from Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. The school has turned away roughly a dozen students because it cannot expand classes without additional staff.

"The $100,000 fee has closed the door for us," McCabe told the Times.

This uneven effect illustrates a basic economic reality: when government alters the price of a key input such as specialized labor, participants respond according to their resources and constraints. Larger firms with substantial revenue can absorb or pass along higher costs, while smaller entities often withdraw. Retailers such as Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's showed more stable filing numbers over the same period, indicating that company-specific factors also influence outcomes.

The H-1B program has long been a flashpoint in debates over immigration and labor markets. Supporters view it as essential for filling genuine skill shortages. Critics contend it has enabled some industries to hold down wages and limit investment in American training programs. The new fee appears to be prompting a market test of those claims. Early data suggest many large employers are choosing to hire fewer foreign workers rather than pay the added cost, a development consistent with standard incentives in a price-sensitive labor market.

Whether this shift will translate into more jobs, higher wages, or expanded training opportunities for U.S. workers remains to be seen. The first-quarter figures capture only initial reactions. Additional months of data will show if companies are making lasting changes to recruitment or simply delaying hiring. For now, the numbers indicate that raising the cost of imported skilled labor has reduced demand for it among some of the program's largest users.

The administration's move represents one of the more concrete alterations to legal immigration policy in recent years. By attaching a substantial price tag to new H-1B visas, policymakers have effectively narrowed the pipeline that has supplied hundreds of thousands of workers to tech campuses, consulting firms, hospitals, and schools. The resulting contraction at prominent companies like Walmart, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan offers a real-time case study in how enterprises adapt when government changes the relative price of domestic and foreign labor.

Smaller nonprofits like Wayside now face difficult choices: raise more private funds, reduce services, or find creative ways to recruit locally. Their experience highlights that policy changes rarely distribute burdens uniformly. Yet the overall drop in applications suggests the higher fee is achieving one stated goal: prompting organizations to look harder for talent already inside the country before turning abroad.

As fiscal year 2026 continues, labor economists and immigration analysts will scrutinize whether reduced H-1B usage leads to measurable gains for American workers in wages or employment. The early evidence from major employers indicates that when the cost of foreign visas rises, demand for them falls. That outcome aligns with long-understood patterns of supply, demand, and substitution in competitive labor markets.