Trump's proposal for H-1B visas would set the minimum salary for entry-level tech positions at around $162,000.

      An entry-level software engineer in San Francisco would need an annual salary of at least $162,000 to qualify for an H-1B visa, based on a proposal from the Trump administration published in March. The same position in Dallas would require approximately $113,000, while in New York, it would be $132,000. These figures represent nearly a 30% increase over the current minimums in each city.

      The underlying mechanism is complex, but the effects are clear. The Department of Labor's proposed rule, issued on March 27 and open for public comment until May 26, alters how prevailing wages are calculated for the H-1B and PERM visa programs. Currently, the lowest wage level (Level I, the entry tier) is tied to the seventeenth percentile of Bureau of Labor Statistics earnings for specific occupations within particular metro areas. The proposed change would raise this anchor to the thirty-fourth percentile, while Level IV, the senior tier, would rise from the sixty-seventh to the eighty-eighth percentile. This adjustment would impact all levels in between.

      According to the Department of Labor, the overall increase averages about $14,000 annually for each affected role, with senior positions in high-cost metro areas experiencing even larger increases. For instance, a Level IV data scientist in Silicon Valley could see a salary floor raise by over $45,000. Some legal analyses have suggested that for certain occupation-metro combinations, the new salary floor could reach or exceed $208,000.

      The administration argues that the current wage bands, established in the 1990s, are significantly lower than the market rates faced by American workers, especially for early-career engineers and recent STEM graduates. By raising these bands within the percentile distribution, the aim is to eliminate the cost incentive for filling entry-level technical roles with foreign workers. However, there is debate about whether this will lead to fewer overall hires or if employers will continue to hire as before.

      Additionally, H-1B regulations are being adjusted further; in September 2025, a new $100,000 fee was implemented for new H-1B petitions, replacing a fee structure that had previously charged employers between $2,000 and $5,000. A federal judge upheld this fee in December despite pushback from the US Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of nineteen state attorneys general.

      Amazon, the largest H-1B sponsor, employs over 10,000 visa holders, while Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google each sponsor several thousand additional workers. When combined with the new wage rule and application fee, the overall cost for hiring an entry-level H-1B engineer in a top-tier metro area could increase by tens of thousands of dollars before employment even begins.

      The wage rule arrives at a time when the industry is already adjusting its labor costs around AI technologies. The trend of converting payroll into AI capital expenditures has dominated the tech hiring narrative, with companies like Meta and Microsoft leading the charge, and Atlassian restructuring 1,600 jobs in March in a similar vein. In the first four months of 2026, over 78,000 tech workers lost their jobs, with about half of those layoffs attributed to AI taking over tasks previously performed by humans. Resume.org's hiring managers have indicated that more cuts could be forthcoming.

      While demand for AI-specialist roles remains robust, entry-level and generalist software positions have decreased, which analysts have termed the AI-employment paradox. The new H-1B wage rule particularly heightens the wage floor for this fast-shrinking entry-level sector, leading to predictions that applications for entry-level visas will decline and more work will be either offshored or automated through AI rather than being brought back to US workers.

      Conversely, some of the largest visa sponsors have stated their intention to absorb the increased costs. When the $100,000 fee was announced, Nvidia's Jensen Huang dismissed the concern, asserting that the company would continue sponsoring needed workers. Similarly, Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google have echoed this commitment, indicating that the higher wage floor primarily changes the way H-1B hiring costs are reflected in financial statements rather than affecting their hiring decisions.

      Smaller employers and IT-services firms that have historically relied on the H-1B visa for mid-level outsourced engineering roles will feel the brunt of this financial pressure, along with the tens of thousands of researchers, scientists, and engineers in the visa pipeline who may not possess the highest skill sets.

      Universities and research laboratories will also be significantly impacted, as the H-1B visa is a common pathway for foreign-born postdoctoral researchers and graduate students seeking US-based employment. Raising the wage floor to meet academic salary scales, which lag behind both private-sector wages and Bureau of Labor Statistics percentiles, introduces a structural issue that the Department of Labor's proposal has yet to address. Higher education industry groups have raised concerns and are expected to be voc