H-1B in 2026: Which Fees Are Real, the Wage Proposal, and What Happens If You Lose Your Job
Three separate H-1B fees are circulating right now and they are routinely described as if they were one thing. They are not. One takes effect on September 9 and most employers will never pay it. One has been struck down and is not being collected. One is a proposal that cannot bind anyone yet. Alongside them sits a wage proposal that would change the arithmetic of every H-1B and PERM filing, and a separate proposal that would remove the 60-day cushion after a job ends.
This is the H-1B picture as of August 28, 2026, sorted by whether it actually applies to you today.
Sources: Federal Register (CBP final rule August 10, 2026; DHS proposed rule August 25, 2026; DOL proposed rule March 27, 2026); USCIS Policy Manual; Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs pending review list, checked August 28, 2026. Not legal advice.
The three fees, and which one you owe
1. The $4,000 and $4,500 fee now applies to extensions (September 9, 2026)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection published a final rule on August 10, 2026 concerning the 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee. It takes effect thirty days later, on September 9, 2026.
This fee is old. It was created by Public Law 114-113 in December 2015, replacing an earlier supplemental fee established in 2010. The amounts are $4,000 for H-1B and $4,500 for L-1, and they have not changed. What the new rule changes is scope: covered employers must now submit the fee on all extension of status petitions, including extensions that do not involve a change of employer. Same-employer renewals previously sat outside it.
Three things decide whether it touches you:
- It applies only to covered employers, meaning employers with 50 or more employees in the United States where more than 50 percent of those United States employees hold H-1B or L-1 status. The large majority of H-1B employers do not meet that test.
- The fee is submitted by the petitioning employer, not by the worker.
- It is not retroactive. The rule says the fees will not apply retroactively to past or pending petitions.
Practical read: if you work for a large staffing or consulting business whose United States headcount is mostly H-1B and L-1, a routine extension now carries a fee that previously applied only at initial filing. If you work anywhere else, this changes nothing for you.
2. The $100,000 payment requirement is not being collected
A 2025 proclamation created a $100,000 payment requirement tied to certain H-1B entries. In June 2026 a federal district court vacated it, holding it an unlawful exercise of the authority claimed and contrary to the Administrative Procedure Act. In July 2026 the court of appeals declined to stay that vacatur while the government's appeal proceeds.
So as things stand it is not in effect and not being collected. The merits appeal is still pending, separate litigation over the same measure is moving in another circuit, and the underlying proclamation carries a September 20, 2026 expiry date. Any of those three could change the position.
Practical read: nothing to pay. This is also the item most often confused with the $103,265 proposal below, and they are unrelated in origin, mechanism and amount.
3. The proposed $103,265 fee on cap-subject petitions
The Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule on August 25, 2026 that would establish a $103,265 fee, payable at the time of filing, on all H-1B cap-subject petitions, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption. It would be imposed in addition to all other applicable fees. The stated purpose is to recover part of the cost of administering the immigration system across DHS, DOJ, DOS and DOL.
The comment period closes September 24, 2026, and the docket had already drawn several thousand comments within days of publication.
Practical read: this is a proposal, which means there is nothing to pay and nothing to do about it except comment if you want to. A rule proposed in late August has to close comments, address them, and publish as a final rule before it binds anyone, and it would then face the same kind of challenge that removed the proclamation fee. Treating it as a settled cost of the next cap season is premature.
The wage proposal, and why it matters beyond H-1B
The Department of Labor published a proposed rule on March 27, 2026 revising how prevailing wages are computed for H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3, and for PERM. The comment period closed May 26, 2026. No final rule has issued and there is no effective date.
The proposal moves all four wage levels up:
| Wage level | Today | Proposed |
|---|---|---|
| Level I (entry) | 17th percentile | 34th percentile |
| Level II (qualified) | 34th percentile | 52nd percentile |
| Level III (experienced) | 50th percentile | 70th percentile |
| Level IV (fully competent) | 67th percentile | 88th percentile |
The entry level roughly doubles in percentile terms, which is where the pressure lands hardest. DOL estimated the change would raise the average certified wage by around $14,000 per year per worker.
If finalised, DOL indicated it would apply to prevailing wage requests pending at the National Processing Center on the effective date and to filings made after it. Approved LCAs, certified PERM applications and prevailing wage determinations already issued would not be reopened.
Practical read: this is the item on the list with the widest reach, because it touches the green card path as well as the visa. It is also still a proposal five months after publication, so the useful posture is to know the numbers rather than to plan around a date that does not exist.
If you lose your job
The 60-day grace period today
The 60-day discretionary grace period has existed by regulation since early 2017 for categories including E, H-1B, L-1, O-1 and TN. It remains available today. It runs from the end of employment, and it is capped at 60 days or the end of your authorised validity period, whichever is shorter. That last clause catches people out: if your I-94 expires 20 days after your last day, you have 20 days, not 60.
It is also discretionary, not a status you hold by right, and it is available once per authorised validity period.
The proposal that would remove it
On August 6, 2026 DHS sent a proposed rule titled "Eliminating the Discretionary 60-day Grace Period" for White House review. As of August 28, 2026 it remains under review and the text is not public, so nobody outside the agency knows whether it eliminates the period outright or shortens it.
The sequence from here is fixed: clear review, publish as a proposal, take comment, then finalise. Nothing about the grace period has changed yet.
Changing to H-4
If your spouse holds H-1B status, changing to H-4 is one of the routes out of a job loss, and it is worth understanding what it does and does not give you.
The mechanics. You file Form I-539 to change status to H-4. It must be filed while you are still in a period of authorised stay, which in practice means inside the grace period, and the earlier in that window the better. A timely filed I-539 generally lets you remain in the United States while it is pending.
Work authorisation is a separate question. H-4 status by itself does not authorise employment. An H-4 EAD requires the H-1B spouse to have an approved I-140, or to have been granted an extension beyond the sixth year under the AC21 provisions. The H-4 EAD program is intact and operating in 2026, and there is no published rule rescinding it, but eligibility still turns on that I-140 or AC21 condition. If your spouse does not meet it, H-4 keeps you in status without letting you work.
The renewal cushion is gone. An interim final rule effective October 30, 2025 removed the automatic extension of EAD validity for timely filed renewals in the affected categories. A pending H-4 EAD renewal no longer carries you past the expiry date on the card, so the gap between an expiring EAD and an approved renewal is now a genuine gap in work authorisation.
Returning to H-1B later. Moving to H-4 does not forfeit the fact that you were counted against the cap. A future employer generally files a cap-exempt petition to move you back, and time spent outside H-1B status can usually be recaptured toward the six-year maximum. This is the kind of detail worth confirming against your own I-94 history with an attorney rather than assuming.
Other routes people weigh in the same window include a new employer filing an H-1B transfer, a change to another status such as F-1 or O-1, and, where a green card case is far enough along, an I-485 that is already pending. Which of those is realistic depends on facts specific to you, and this is the point in the process where the cost of getting it wrong is highest.
One change that cuts across all of it
Effective August 5, 2026, USCIS restored officer discretion to deny a benefit request without first issuing a Request for Evidence or a Notice of Intent to Deny where the filing does not establish eligibility. The Policy Manual now states plainly that an RFE is not there to cure a deficiency, because eligibility has to exist at the time of filing.
For H-1B extensions, transfers and I-539 change of status filings, that removes the informal cushion of filing something thin and fixing it when the request arrives. It matters most on exactly the filings covered above, because those are the ones people make under time pressure after a job ends.
Dates worth putting on the calendar
- September 9, 2026 — the $4,000 and $4,500 fee begins applying to extension petitions filed by covered employers.
- September 20, 2026 — expiry date carried by the 2025 proclamation behind the $100,000 payment requirement.
- September 24, 2026 — comments close on the proposed $103,265 cap-subject fee.
- No date — the DOL wage rule and the 60-day grace period rule. Neither has an effective date because neither is final.
Bottom line
One H-1B fee change is real and dated, and it lands on a narrow slice of employers rather than on workers. The two large headline numbers are, respectively, not being collected and not yet a rule. The wage proposal is the one with the broadest eventual reach and the least attention. And the 60-day grace period, which is the thing that actually protects people when a job ends, has not changed, though a proposal to change it is moving through review.
The practical takeaway is unglamorous. Know which of these has a date, keep your own I-94 and EAD expiry dates in front of you rather than the headline fee numbers, and file complete the first time now that the request for more documents is no longer the expected step.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Immigration rules change frequently and apply differently to individual circumstances. Verify any date or figure against the primary source before acting on it, and consult a licensed immigration attorney about your own situation. Figures and dates above reflect published government sources as of August 28, 2026.