DHS put a $103,265 price on the student-to-H-1B hire, and its own math names who cannot pay

Run the department's own test backwards. DHS calls an impact significant when the cost exceeds 1 percent of annual revenue ^[7]. A single $103,265 petition ^[1] clears that bar at any employer below roughly $10.33 million in yearly revenue, and two petitions clear it below roughly $20.65 million ^[5]. So the rule does not merely fall harder on small sponsors. It defines, in the agency's own arithmetic, a revenue floor beneath which sponsoring one foreign graduate is a material corporate event.

The affected population is bigger than the small-entity label suggests. Of the 28,649 employers that filed initial cap-subject petitions in fiscal 2025 ^[6], the 11,051 DHS expects to feel a significant impact ^[7] work out to 39 percent of all cap-subject filers ^[3]. That count also leaves out the 5,350 employers the department could not classify for lack of revenue, headcount or industry data ^[6].

Why no small-entity discount? The price is a quotient. DHS divided $8.777 billion in government costs by 85,000 projected fee-paying petitions ^[14], and 85,000 is exactly the statutory cap of 65,000 plus the 20,000 US advanced-degree allocation ^[4][2]. Every petition in the annual cap is assumed to pay. Exempt a class of employers and the money has to be recovered from the rest at a higher unit price, which is the more durable half of the department's stated reasons for refusing discounts, alongside the worry about firms restructuring to qualify ^[8].

That denominator has a soft edge the rule does not price. The charge lands when an employer files a selected cap petition ^[3], which is after the lottery, not before it. A small sponsor can be selected and then decline to file. If a tenth of the 85,000 walk away at that step, collections fall about $878 million short of the target ^[6], and the per-petition cost basis published in the proposal no longer describes anything real. The rounding is a smaller matter in the same direction: $103,265 times 85,000 comes to $8.7775 billion, about $525,000 above the cost figure it is meant to recover ^[7].

The legal exposure has moved with the mechanism. The September 2025 proclamation set a $100,000 payment for certain H-1B workers outside the United States ^[10] and was vacated in June by a federal judge in Massachusetts as a tax imposed without congressional authority, with the First Circuit refusing on July 24th to let collection continue during appeal ^[11]. This time DHS is going through notice and comment and citing Immigration and Nationality Act authority to recover adjudication and naturalization costs, and says explicitly that it rests on different authority ^[12]. The American Immigration Lawyers Association calls it "essentially a tax" and argues that funding work across several agencies from H-1B petitions lacks specific congressional authorization ^[13]. That is a fight over what is inside the $8.777 billion, which makes the cost breakdown the document to read, not the headline number.

Note also who the new version reaches. The vacated proclamation applied to workers abroad ^[10]; the proposed fee attaches to first-time petitions for people already in the country, including graduates moving from student status into a first job ^[1]. Comments are open for 30 days after publication, and nothing is owed yet ^[2].