Latest proposal of US visa fee might cost Indian IT companies $400 million

December 18, 2015
As per the apex body of IT firms, Nasscom, the US proposal of increasing the H-1B and L-1 visa fees will substantially hurt the Indian IT companies.

According to them, the proposal increase will cost the IT outsourcing firms of India a minimum of additional $400 million yearly; this can slay the competitive edge IT companies from India had over international peers.

Latest proposal of US visa fee might cost Indian IT companies $400 million

The proposal which was put by the US Congress before the two houses, the US law is to impose a fee on categories of H-1B and L-1 visas, increasing the amount to $4,500 for every application, to assist finance their health care regulation and a system of biometric tracking. The lower house would vote on this matter on Friday, which is followed by the House.

According to Nasscom, they are extremely disappointed with measure to charge the biased visa fee and the IT industry of India shall not be constantly targeted as the income source for financing the not related programs like biometric exit-entry. Additionally, this bill is started in the one-sided manner with any chance for discussion.

The propose hike is double from what the Indian IT firms are presently paying to the authorities of the US. The cost of visa application in the category of H-1B is presently around $2000 and for the L-1 it is around 2,500 per application. 

Study from Nasscom had revealed that the IT firms from India had paid around $70 to $80 million yearly to the treasury in form of fee. The bill has not mentioned directly IT firms from India but it would be applied to the entities that employ 50 or more in the US, where over half the employees of the applicants are non immigrants.

According to the reports, the Indian Prime Minister’s Office has raised this matter with the Obama Administration. The Congress lower house which has the majority of opposition Republican Party has chosen to move forward with the plan.

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