Is the $100,000 H-1B Fee Still in Effect? Where Things Stand Now

On June 8, 2026, a federal judge in Massachusetts struck down the $100,000 H-1B fee. For employers and foreign nationals who have spent nine months treating that number as a fact of life, it reads like a clean win. It is more complicated than that, and the difference between relief and a costly mistake will come down to how carefully the work is tracked at the case level.

Here is what actually happened, what it changes, what it does not, and where the person most hands-on in these filings, usually the paralegal, carries the weight.

What the fee was

The fee came out of a September 19, 2025 presidential proclamation that imposed a $100,000 charge on certain new H-1B petitions. It was aimed largely at workers being sponsored from outside the United States through consular processing, and the Secretary of Homeland Security was given wide discretion over which petitions were subject to it and which were exempt. In practice, many employers responded by sponsoring beneficiaries already in the United States through a change of status, where the fee generally did not reach, rather than bringing workers in from abroad.

What the court actually held

In State of California v. Noem, the case brought in December by twenty state attorneys general, Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that the charge was not a regulatory fee at all. It raised revenue, which makes it a tax, and a president cannot impose a tax without Congress. On that reasoning, the court vacated the actions that put the fee in place.

One detail matters for how this plays out. The judge declined to issue a permanent injunction. Instead of ordering the government to stop, he relied on the government to comply with the vacatur. That is a narrower posture than a hard injunction, and it leaves more room for the next move.

Why this is not over

A single district court does not settle a question like this, and the law is already split. A federal court in Washington, D.C. reached the opposite conclusion in December, upholding the same fee in the Chamber of Commerce case, which is now on appeal. A third challenge, Global Nurse Force v. Trump, is still pending in California. So one court has struck the fee down, another has upheld it, and a third has yet to rule.

That split points in one direction. The government is expected to appeal quickly, and it may ask the appeals court to stay the vacatur while the appeal proceeds. If a stay is granted, the fee can be collected again in the meantime. A disagreement this clean between federal districts is the kind of question the Supreme Court tends to take up.

The honest summary for a client is not "the fee is gone." It is "a court has vacated the fee, the government is expected to appeal, and the status could change with little notice."

What it means right now

For a beneficiary being sponsored from abroad, the immediate barrier is lifted, which genuinely reopens hiring that the fee had priced out, particularly in healthcare, education, and research. But "right now" is the operative phrase. An employer planning a filing for the next cycle cannot safely budget as though the charge is permanently gone, because an appeal and a stay could revive it before that filing goes in.

There is also the question of the money already paid. In testimony on June 2, 2026, the DHS Secretary told a Senate subcommittee that of roughly 286,000 H-1B applicants so far this year, more than 200,000 had paid the $100,000. Whether any of that is refundable is unresolved. As of the ruling, DHS had not said whether vacating the fee applies retroactively to payments already made. That is a live question for a very large number of employers, and the answer will arrive in guidance, not headlines.

Where the paralegal holds the line

Policy shifts like this play out in courtrooms and press releases, but they are absorbed one case at a time, at a desk, by the person doing the intake, gathering the documents, drafting the petition, and tracking the payments. That is usually the paralegal, and in a moment this fluid, that role is what keeps a firm from getting caught flat.

Know each beneficiary's posture, because exposure depends on it. The fee turned on whether a worker was being sponsored from abroad or was already here on a change of status. The paralegal is the one who already has that fact from intake. A clean record of who is consular and who is change of status is the difference between answering an employer's "are we affected" in minutes versus reopening every file.

Keep a precise payment record, because refunds will reward documentation. For the employers who paid, any refund process that emerges will ask for proof: the amount, the date, the receipt, the specific petition it attached to. A firm that logged each $100,000 payment as it happened can move the moment guidance opens. A firm that did not will be reconstructing it under a deadline.

Track the procedural posture, not just the outcome. Whether the firm advises paying the fee on a new offshore filing this week depends on something that can change between the vacatur, an appeal, and a possible stay. The paralegal who is monitoring the docket and flagging each development to the attorney is the reason that advice stays current instead of stale.

Communicate accurately, without over-promising. Anxious clients want to hear that the fee is dead. The paralegal often drafts those updates, and the wording matters. "Vacated at the district level and under expected appeal" protects the client and the firm. "The fee is gone" does not, and it is the sentence everyone will remember if a stay brings the charge back.

Calendar the unknowns. An appeal deadline, a stay motion, a forthcoming DHS refund position: none of these has a tidy due date yet, but each one needs a placeholder and a watch. That discipline is unglamorous and it is exactly what prevents a missed window.

The bottom line

The ruling is real and it is significant, but it is the opening of a process, not the end of one. The fee has been vacated, the government will almost certainly appeal, and the status may move more than once before it settles. In that gap, the cases that come through cleanly will be the ones where the desk work was disciplined: posture mapped at intake, payments logged, the docket watched, and the client told the accurate version rather than the comforting one. The headline belongs to the court. The outcome, case by case, belongs to whoever is doing the filing.

About the provider: Overflow Paralegal Group is a business immigration knowledge company. We publish plain-language analysis like this, deliver accredited continuing legal education, and place specialist paralegals who hold exactly this kind of line when the rules are moving.

Sources

• State of California v. Noem (D. Mass.), decision of June 8, 2026 vacating the $100,000 H-1B fee, and same-day and next-day coverage of the ruling
• Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Department of Homeland Security (D.D.C., December 23, 2025), upholding the fee, now on appeal
• Global Nurse Force v. Trump (N.D. Cal.), pending challenge to the fee
• Presidential proclamation of September 19, 2025 establishing the $100,000 charge on certain new H-1B petitions
• Testimony of the DHS Secretary before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, June 2, 2026 (applicant and payment figures)