The $100,000 H-1B Fee Is Not in Effect Right Now: The Full Timeline From Proclamation to Court Battle

On September 19, 2025, President Trump signed Proclamation 10973, imposing a $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B petitions effective September 21, 2025. Nearly a year — and three reversals — later, a federal court has vacated the policy that implemented the fee, and an appeals court has refused to put it back on hold. As of this writing, the $100,000 fee is not in effect. That could change again, which is exactly why the full timeline matters more than any single headline.

What the proclamation originally did

Proclamation 10973 was framed as a temporary, 12-month restriction on the entry of certain H-1B workers, paired with a $100,000 payment requirement. USCIS guidance published October 20, 2025 clarified that the fee applied to new H-1B petitions filed on or after September 21, 2025 for beneficiaries outside the United States without a valid H-1B visa, and to petitions for beneficiaries inside the U.S. that requested consular, port-of-entry, or preflight inspection notification. Petitions filed before 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on September 21, 2025 were exempt, and where the fee did apply, it had to be paid through pay.gov before the employer filed the H-1B petition with USCIS.

The lawsuit and the June 2026 ruling

California and nineteen other state attorneys general sued to block the fee. On June 8, 2026, Judge Leo Sorokin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs and vacated the agency policy implementing Proclamation 10973 on multiple, independent grounds. The core holding: the statutes the administration relied on, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(f) and 1185(a), authorize the President to restrict entry of noncitizens, but neither one mentions a payment requirement, and neither had ever been used to impose one before. The court treated the $100,000 charge as a tax that only Congress can levy — reasoning that drew on a recent Supreme Court decision limiting the executive branch's power to impose tariff-like charges without congressional authorization.

The court found the administration "lacked the power under the Constitution and Immigration and Nationality Act to impose this fee," treating taxation as a legislative power the executive cannot exercise by proclamation alone.Summary of the June 8, 2026 District of Massachusetts summary judgment ruling, as reported by CDF Labor Law

A whiplash six weeks: vacated, reinstated, vacated again

• June 8, 2026 — The District of Massachusetts vacates the policy implementing the $100,000 fee.
• June 12, 2026 — Judge Sorokin issues his own administrative stay of that ruling, temporarily reinstating the fee while the government seeks emergency relief.
• July 24, 2026 — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denies the government's motion to stay the district court judgment. The administrative stay lifts, and the vacatur is back in effect while the government's appeal proceeds.

Where things stand as of August 2026

Right now, the $100,000 fee is not being collected on new H-1B filings — the vacatur is in force pending the government's appeal, and the government could still seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court. Separately, Proclamation 10973 was always written as a 12-month restriction, which by its own terms is due to expire on September 20, 2026 unless the administration extends or renews it. That means even without further court action, the original authority behind the fee is close to lapsing on its own — adding a second layer of uncertainty on top of the litigation.

If you already paid the fee, or are filing now

• Keep payment records if your petition already paid the $100,000 fee — refund mechanics for fees paid during the periods the policy was later vacated remain unresolved.
• If a beneficiary needs to travel internationally, get specific guidance from immigration counsel first: reentry could carry exposure if the government later obtains a stay from the Supreme Court while someone is abroad.
• Do not assume the current "not in effect" status is permanent — the posture has flipped three times in about six weeks, and the underlying appeal, a possible Supreme Court application, and the proclamation's own September 20, 2026 expiration date could all move independently of each other.

Bottom line

As of early August 2026, the $100,000 H-1B fee is not valid and is not being enforced — it was vacated by a federal court on June 8, 2026, and the First Circuit declined to put that vacatur on hold on July 24, 2026. If you are on OPT or STEM OPT and weighing the cost of an eventual H-1B petition, do not budget for this fee under the current posture. But keep watching this space: the government's appeal is still active, and the proclamation itself is scheduled to expire September 20, 2026 regardless of how the litigation ends. We will update this article if the status changes again.