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IT-services firms account for a third of the 8.1% fall in H-1B labor filings
Twenty IT-services firms filed 31.9% fewer H-1B labor applications so far in FY2026, a third of an 8.1% drop, a dev.to analysis of federal data found. Because the forms also record each employer's offered wage by title, teams that sponsor engineers can price roles against named rivals.
The Engineer · Build desk
What happened
- Most of the fall came early in the year, with October to December 2025 down 22.2% year on year and April to June down only 2.3%.
- A 19 September 2025 proclamation added a $100,000 payment to certain new H-1B petitions, and a federal court vacated its implementing guidance on 8 June 2026.
- IBM filed 63.8% fewer applications and Tata Consultancy Services 55.6% fewer, while Infosys rose 17.9% and Nvidia rose 71.2% to 2,390.
- Intel recorded 32 PERM green-card certifications for every 100 LCAs across FY2024 and FY2025, while Infosys recorded fewer than one.
Why it matters
- contradiction The analysis credits outsourcing firms and consultancies with most of the fall, yet by its own counts more than half of the decline came from employers outside those two groups.
- cost Where the $100,000 payment applies, it equals 88.5% of TCS's median software-engineer offer and 49% of Meta's, so as a flat fee it costs most on lower-paid sponsored roles.
- decision A sponsored hire comparing employers can use the PERM ratio to separate firms that file green cards for their H-1B staff from firms that almost never do.
An LCA is the first form in any H-1B case. The employer files it with the Labor Department and states the job title, the worksite and the wage it will pay [3]. The department publishes the forms every quarter [4]. The dev.to analysis merged every release from 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2026 with the PERM green-card filings for the same period: 1.57 million LCA cases and 374,000 PERM cases from 153,000 employers [5].
Comparing October to June of each year, certified LCAs fell from 436,875 to 401,397 [6]. The difference is 35,478 applications [23]. The 20 IT-services firms filed 11,776 fewer, 33.2% of the decline [8], though they filed only 8.7% of FY2025's applications [7]. Their share of the fall is about 3.8 times their share of filings [24]. The Big Four and two strategy firms add 4,356, or 12.3% [9]. The authors write that these two groups "account for most of this year's fall" [26]. Added together, the two shares come to 45.5% [27]. Both groups are lists of firms the authors picked by hand, a method they describe as crude [10].
The cause is harder to pin down. The sharpest quarterly fall came directly after the proclamation that added the $100,000 payment [12]. The authors write that the data "shows when filings fell but not why" [13]. An LCA is filed before the petition, so the forms cannot separate petitions the payment applied to from those it did not [14].
On pay, Meta's median software-engineer offer is 1.8 times Tata Consultancy Services' [22]. The analysis puts it as "Who you work for affects the wage more than the visa does" [2]. We think that holds as a description of the filings. Before a team copies the ratio into a pay band, the two sets of titles would need to cover similar seniority, and the worksites similar labour markets. The form records the worksite [3], so the comparison can be run one location at a time, and we would run it that way.
A per-company benchmark also has to add up entities first. The rankings count legal entities, not corporate groups, and Amazon's four main filing entities together filed 22,914 in FY2025 [16].
Most sponsors are small. Of 63,545 employers with a certified LCA in FY2025, 51.6% filed exactly one [18]. The top 100 filers produced 34.0% of certified LCAs [20]. Employers filing one or two made up 68.4% of sponsors but only 10.0% of filings, and the median sponsor filed one [19]. The authors note that a company's absence from top-100 lists does not show it won't sponsor [21].
What to watch
- The court fight over the vacated guidance for the $100,000 payment; reinstatement would put certain new H-1B petitions back under the fee.
- The July to September 2026 quarterly release will show whether the year-on-year decline, 2.3% in April to June, closes out entirely.
- Whether Infosys keeps growing its filings while the other IT-services firms cut, given its PERM ratio of under one per 100 LCAs.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence55
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
The median offered wage for software-engineer titles was $203,350 at Meta and $112,986 at Tata Consultancy Services.
ReportedSupportedSource: dev.to analysis2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source - [2]
"Who you work for affects the wage more than the visa does."
ReportedSupportedSource: dev.to analysis2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source - [3]
Every H-1B petition starts with a Labor Condition Application (LCA) filed with the US Department of Labor, on which the employer gives the job title, the worksite and the wage it will pay.
- [4]
The Labor Department publishes LCA forms every quarter.
- [5]
The analysis combined all LCA filings from 1 October 2023 to 30 June 2026 with PERM green-card filings for the same period: 1.57 million LCA cases and 374,000 PERM cases from 153,000 employers.
- [6]
Comparing October to June of each fiscal year, total certified LCAs fell from 436,875 to 401,397, a fall of 8.1% in FY2026.
- [7]
Twenty large IT-services firms filed 31.9% fewer certified LCAs in October to June FY2026 than a year earlier and account for a third of the drop, though they filed only 8.7% of FY2025's applications.
- [8]
The 20 IT-services firms filed 11,776 fewer certified LCAs in October to June than a year earlier, 33.2% of the total decline.
- [9]
The Big Four and two strategy firms filed 4,356 fewer certified LCAs, 12.3% of the decline.
- [10]
Four employer groups are lists of named employers chosen by hand; the authors describe both grouping methods as crude.
- [11]
Year on year, the October to December 2025 quarter was down 22.2%, January to March down 7.7% and April to June down 2.3%.
- [12]
A presidential proclamation of 19 September 2025 added a $100,000 payment to certain new H-1B petitions just before the October to December quarter; a federal court vacated the implementing guidance on 8 June 2026 and litigation is ongoing.
- [13]
The data "shows when filings fell but not why."
- [14]
An LCA is filed before the petition, so the figures cannot separate petitions the $100,000 payment applied to from those it did not.
- [15]
Among employers with at least 500 certified LCAs in October to June FY2025, the largest falls were IBM (-63.8%), Tata Consultancy Services (-55.6%), Qualcomm (-51.8%), LTIMindtree (-47.6%) and HCL America (-44.0%); Infosys rose 17.9% and Nvidia rose 71.2% to 2,390.
- [16]
The rankings count legal entities, not corporate groups; Amazon's four main filing entities combined filed 22,914 certified LCAs in FY2025.
- [17]
Intel had 32 PERM certifications for every 100 LCAs and Infosys fewer than one, using FY2024 plus FY2025 for both counts.
- [18]
Of the 63,545 employers with a certified LCA in FY2025, 51.6% had exactly one.
- [19]
Employers that filed one or two certified LCAs numbered 43,454, or 68.4% of all sponsors, and accounted for 10.0% of filings; the median sponsor filed one.
- [20]
The top 100 filers accounted for 34.0% of certified LCAs in FY2025.
- [21]
A company's absence from the top-100 lists does not show it won't sponsor.
- [22]
Meta's median software-engineer offered wage is 1.8 times Tata Consultancy Services'.
- [23]
The like-for-like decline in certified LCAs is 35,478 applications.
- [24]
The IT-services firms' share of the decline is about 3.8 times their share of FY2025 filings.
- [25]
The $100,000 payment equals 88.5% of TCS's median software-engineer offer and 49% of Meta's.
- [26]
The analysis states that two groups (the IT-services firms and the Big Four plus two strategy firms) "account for most of this year's fall."
ReportedContestedSource: dev.to analysis2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source - [27]
The IT-services group and the Big Four plus strategy firms together account for 45.5% of the decline, under half.
Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- dev.toWho actually sponsors H-1B workers in 2026, and what they offer to pay
1 article · October 10, 2026
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