Big Tech’s new hiring hurdle: Why bringing international talent to Seattle is now more expensive

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by Lisa Stiffler on May 12, 2026 at 10:48 am May 12, 2026 at 2:28 pm Two new rules governing H-1B visas took effect last year, aiming to fix the program’s two most persistent criticisms: that foreign workers were taking jobs Americans wanted, and that visa holders were essentially indentured to their employers in order to remain in the country.

So are the changes solving the problems as hoped? Yes, said one expert. “It is working as intended,” said Xiao Wang , co-founder and CEO of Boundless Immigration , a Seattle-based startup that helps companies and workers navigate the immigration process.

But there’s a new challenge: the system gives employers a strong incentive to offer higher salaries — not because the job requires it, but to improve their workers’ odds in the lottery. And that could make international hiring more expensive.

The new rules replaced a random, equal-odds lottery with a weighted system that gives the highest-wage H-1B applicants odds four times better than the lowest-wage workers. Employers also now pay a $100,000 fee per new application.

The changes come as tech-sector layoffs have raised fresh questions about whether the program displaces American workers — one of the criticisms the new rules were designed to address.

Boundless, whose clients include companies applying for H-1B workers, released a report on the 2026 visa application cycle while federal data is still pending.

Its findings show the wage weighting is having a real effect, but with notable tradeoffs: “This cycle was meaningfully different from last year,” said Priyanka Kulkarni , founder and CEO of Casium , a Seattle startup that also provides immigration services.

“Registrations were down, and the weighted lottery is doing what it was designed to do. Level III and Level IV selection rates both came in above 50%. ” Many of the early-stage companies that Casium serves came out “in good shape,” she added.

While the H-1B program targets wide-ranging sectors including healthcare, finance, academia, architecture and sciences, Seattle-area tech companies remain among the program’s largest users. Amazon ranked first among all U. S.

employers with 13,265 approved applicants in 2025, and Microsoft ranked third with 6,258, according to federal data. Meta came in second and an Indian IT outsourcing firm placed fourth. India-born workers have dominated H-1B approvals, accounting for about 71% in recent years.

Whether that share will shift remains to be seen. Bloomberg has documented how Cognizant, a major IT outsourcing firm, focused on securing H-1B visas for lower-level workers from India, a practice that the new rules could disrupt.

Wang cautioned that companies and workers are still adjusting their strategies, and he expects the numbers to keep moving. The government projected only 15% of Level I applicants would be approved, suggesting that the rate observed by Boundless in the first round could decline.

At the same time, the wage thresholds could also push employers to inflate salaries in order to move workers into higher tiers and improve their lottery odds.

For example, in King County — which includes Seattle, Redmond and Bellevue — the prevailing annual wage for a software engineer is $117,000, while a Level IV worker in the same area earns $212,000.

That gap could also push companies to locate H-1B hires in lower-cost cities, choosing Cincinnati over Seattle or San Francisco to hit a given wage tier at a lower cost. For highly skilled workers, though, the new system may actually be a draw.

Better odds for higher earners make the visa process more predictable, which could attract top-tier international talent who previously avoided the program’s uncertainty.

“All of a sudden it has turned from a crapshoot of being able to stay in this country to an expectation that you can stay in this country if you’re at a certain wage level,” Wang said. Thanks for subscribing! Check your inbox to confirm your subscription.