The huge increase in US H-1B visa fees has created a crisis for millions of technical professionals and startups. Where earlier ₹ 6 lakhs used to get H-1B visa, now the same fee has been ₹ 88 lakh. This increase has become a major challenge for small engineers and startups that have limited resources. Also, the approvals of the H-1B visa received by India have also decreased, causing the situation to become more complicated. On the other hand, China has launched its new K visa, taking advantage of this crisis, which will be applicable from 1 October 2025. K visa is specifically for Stem (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) professionals. This visa will have more flexibility and will allow foreign professionals to live in China for a longer period. The special thing is that K visa will not need to work with a Chinese company. In addition, K visa holders can participate in education, science, technology, and business activities in China. So the question is: Can China’s K Visa become a real competition for American H-1B? Will it be a new attraction for global technical professionals?

The huge increase in H-1B Visa Fees by the government of Us President Donald Trump has created a stir in Global Tech Industry. Under the new rules, the fees of H-1B Visa have been increased from 100 times to about $ 100,000, which will directly affect the cost of IT companies. Although Indian IT companies have limited dependence on H-1B in America (1–3%), 21,000+ employees of American Tech Companies like Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are working on this visa-and it starts from here. There will be an additional burden of $ 16.6k – $ 33K. At the same time, Local Hiring costs 25–30% more. This increases the expenditure in both the paths. As a result, companies can now turn to offshoring or outsourcing – as it happened at the time of Y2K when India acquired 2.5 billion dollar contracts. The US is also at risk of $ 35 billion annually tax loss, and “Reverese Drain” can be faster in India.

A big update related to H-1B visa has now surfaced amidst the ongoing conversation between the US and India. The Trump S This change will be applicable to 85,000 H-1B visas every year, with 20,000 visa reserved for master’s degree holders. According to IFP research, if this new system is applied, the average salary of visa for the first time can increase from $ 106,000 to $ 172,000. This is expected to bring a major change in the US labor market. This step will be a setback especially for outsourcing companies that appoint foreign workers at low salary. At the same time, PhD holders and highly skilled professionals can benefit greatly. However, this change can increase the economic cost of the H-1B visa program by 88%. Significantly, 72.3% of the total H-1B visas released in 2023 were given to Indian professionals. In such a situation, this change can directly affect Indians.