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

The first hard data on President Donald Trump's overhaul of the H-1B visa program shows a sharp contraction in corporate demand and a near-total shutdown for many smaller organizations that have long relied on the visas to fill specialized roles. By attaching a $100,000 fee to new applications last September, the administration has fundamentally altered who can participate in a system designed three decades ago to help American employers hire talent unavailable in the domestic labor market.

Walmart, one of the country's largest private employers, submitted 312 certified H-1B applications in the final three months of 2025, the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. That figure is more than 50 percent lower than the roughly 860 applications filed in the same period a year earlier and about 40 percent below levels from two years ago, according to Department of Labor data. The retail sector as a whole appears to be pulling back. Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's maintained relatively steady but modest numbers, suggesting the fee is prompting even deep-pocketed companies to reassess their use of the program.

On Wall Street the picture is mixed but points in the same direction. Major financial firms that are traditionally large users of H-1B visas filed about 10 percent fewer applications in the quarter than they did a year earlier. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase both recorded noticeable declines. Citigroup, by contrast, increased its petitions. The data offer the first clear window into how banks that use the visas to expand technical and quantitative teams are reacting to higher costs. Industry analysts have noted that rapid advances in artificial intelligence may already be reducing demand for some entry-level technical roles that H-1B hires have filled in recent years, potentially amplifying the effect of the new fee.

The steepest impact, however, is landing on employers that lack Walmart's or Goldman Sachs' financial cushion. The New York Times reported this week that smaller nonprofits, rural hospitals, and specialized schools have been effectively locked out. Sara McCabe, president of the Wayside Youth & Family Support Network in Massachusetts, said her organization can no longer afford the program. Wayside runs a private special-education school that has struggled for years to recruit qualified teachers locally. It now has five open positions it would normally fill with H-1B hires from countries including Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. Because it cannot staff additional classrooms, the nonprofit has turned away a dozen students seeking enrollment.

This pattern repeats across the country. Hospitals in sparsely populated areas have used the visas to address chronic nursing and physician shortages. Consulting firms that place specialized workers at smaller clients and universities seeking researchers in niche fields face similar constraints. The $100,000 fee, layered on top of existing legal and recruiting costs, makes the math unworkable for organizations operating on thin margins. The result is a quiet but significant reordering of the program: what was once a broad, if imperfect, pipeline for skilled immigration is becoming narrower and more concentrated among the largest and most profitable entities.

The administration has defended the changes as necessary to protect American workers and to ensure that visas go only to the highest-value uses. Yet early evidence suggests the policy is not simply reducing overall immigration but redirecting it. Large technology companies and elite consulting firms, which can absorb the added expense or already pay premium wages, appear better positioned to continue participating. Smaller institutions that serve vulnerable populations, whether special-needs children or patients in underserved regions, cannot. The data released so far capture only the first quarter after the fee took effect. Visa applications for the main H-1B lottery season typically surge in the spring, so the full picture will not be clear until later this year.

Still, the initial numbers align with warnings from labor-market researchers who have long argued that shortages in fields such as special education, certain nursing specialties, and rural healthcare cannot be solved by domestic recruitment alone in the near term. When those pipelines close, the costs are borne by students who cannot enroll, patients who cannot be seen, and communities that lose access to services. Walmart's reduced filings, while noteworthy for a company of its scale, may reflect a strategic shift away from international talent in routine technology roles. The deeper policy question is what happens to the parts of the economy that never treated H-1B visas as a convenience but as a last resort.

Immigration policy has always been a blunt instrument. The Trump administration's decision to price a significant share of employers out of the market has produced the predictable effect of reducing applications. Less predictable, and more troubling, is the speed with which the burden has fallen on institutions whose missions are furthest from the profit-driven calculations that dominate discussions of high-skilled immigration. The coming months will reveal whether this contraction leads to genuine wage growth for American workers in these fields or simply leaves critical gaps unfilled.