$100,000 H-1B visas: for African tech talent, the road to the United States is closing

When the US administration imposed a $100,000 fee in September 2025 on H-1B visas requested from abroad, many experts predicted that skilled workers would turn to other visas. A year later, State Department figures analysed by the outlet TechCabal tell a different story: there has been no workaround, but a general contraction. And for African talent, Nigerians in particular, the door is closing.

A fee extended, a broader proposal

The H-1B visa allows US employers to bring in foreign professionals for specialised jobs, mainly in technology and engineering. India, China and Nigeria have been among the top ten beneficiary countries since at least 2024. The $100,000 fee, introduced in September 2025 for twelve months, has been extended by President Donald Trump until September 2027, despite appeals.

At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed extending a fee of a comparable amount, $103,265, to all H-1B petitions subject to the annual cap, including for people already in the United States who change status. The public comment period on this proposal closed on 24 September 2026. This two-pronged approach gives the administration another legal route if one of the measures is struck down in court.

The figures: down 52% in five months

Over the first five months of fiscal year 2026, from October 2025 to February 2026, H-1B visa issuances fell from 115,164 a year earlier to 55,057, a 52% drop. Compared with the same period of fiscal 2023, the decline reaches 55%. India, by far the largest beneficiary, went from 79,395 to 30,593 visas, down 61.5%. In January and February, the first full months after the fee took effect, issuances to Indians fell by 90%.

In total, non-immigrant visa issuances across all categories fell by a million over the same period. For Africa, they were halved. And for Nigeria, which was the leading African recipient of US visas, the drop reaches 86.7% across all categories.

No fallback route

The idea of a shift to other visas does not hold up. Of twelve categories tracked, only one grew: treaty trader and investor visas (E-1 and E-2), up by just 406. The O-1 visa, reserved for people of “extraordinary ability”, which many saw as an alternative, fell by 10.5%. F-1 student visas fell by 44.7%, J-1 exchange visas by 10.8%, L-1 intra-company transfers by 14.6%, and visas for spouses and children of H-1B holders by 54.8%.

In other words, US immigration policy has not just closed one door: it has narrowed all the temporary routes in. For an African engineer, the classic path, a master’s degree in the United States followed by a work visa, has become much more uncertain at every step. US companies, for their part, are more hesitant to promise visa sponsorship to a foreign candidate, knowing it could cost them an extra $100,000. Many now prefer to hire remotely, in the candidate’s country, or to set up teams abroad.

Why India fell further than others

India’s drop is explained by the structure of the market. A large share of H-1B visas granted to Indians goes to big IT services companies, which send engineers to their US clients for assignments. That is precisely the model, based on hiring from abroad, that the $100,000 fee targeted. For an assignment of a few years, such a sum rarely makes the operation profitable. Issuances to Chinese nationals also fell, by 29% in January–February, but much less.

For Nigeria, the 86.7% collapse concerns all temporary visas, not just the H-1B. It also reflects a more general tightening of issuance conditions for nationals of several African countries, including for visits and studies. US universities, which every year welcomed many Nigerian students in science and engineering, are already feeling the effects, as are the families who had saved for those studies.

What it changes for African talent

For many Nigerian, Kenyan or Ghanaian developers, data scientists and engineers, the United States was the most attractive career horizon: high salaries, big tech companies, the possibility of staying afterwards. That route is narrowing abruptly. Several alternatives are already emerging: Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany or the Gulf states, which are actively recruiting in tech, and above all remote work for foreign companies without leaving the country.

Remote work has its limits: salaries often lower than for equivalent jobs on site, insecure contracts, difficulty receiving international payments, and dependence on a reliable connection and power supply. But it also has a positive effect for African ecosystems: skills and income stay on the continent, where they can fuel consumption, investment and sometimes the creation of companies.

African tech companies may find an opportunity in this. Experienced profiles who would have left the continent remain available, and some, trained abroad, are considering coming back. Start-ups able to offer them pay partly in foreign currency, equity and ambitious projects will be able to recruit talent that used to escape them. This shift cannot be decreed, but it can be prepared: diaspora attraction policies, remote work and innovation hubs play a direct role here.

Brain drain slowed, not solved

Some African officials will see these restrictions as an opportunity to slow the brain drain, which deprives the continent of many engineers and doctors trained at great expense. The argument has its limits: talent that does not go to the United States does not necessarily stay; it goes elsewhere. And those who stay often do so out of necessity, not choice, in economies where tech salaries and working conditions remain uncompetitive.

Keeping talent requires something other than visas closed abroad: local companies able to pay, a stable currency, reliable electricity and an environment where starting a business is not an obstacle course. US policy changes African engineers’ options; it does not change the reasons they were leaving. Those reasons are what the continent’s governments and companies can act on.