Since September 19, 2025, every move to hire international tech talent comes with a staggering new price tag of $100,000 per H-1B petition. That’s six figures gone before a new hire even starts.
The announcement is shaking boardrooms and unsettling tech leaders. However, beyond the shock, the pressing question is how many will adjust their hiring strategies in an already competitive market for engineers and developers?
In situations like this, some firms will absorb the cost, while others will stall, and the gap between them will become apparent in no time.
So what’s the way out?
In this guide, we break down what this change means for tech leaders and reveal the way forward that smart companies are already embracing.
The True Impact of the New H-1B Fee on US Tech Leaders
The presidential proclamation introduces a steep new cost at exactly the wrong time. U.S. companies rely on global talent to drive innovation, particularly in technology.
According to a Pew report, in 2023, roughly 65% of approved H-1B workers were in computer-related roles, with a median salary of $123,600. These professionals are not low-cost hires, but highly skilled engineers and developers who form the backbone of innovations across the industry.
Tech executives are feeling the heat more than anyone because they are responsible for keeping teams strong, projects moving, and budgets balanced.
Now, every hiring decision comes with higher stakes and fewer options, which makes building reliable teams harder, even amid the pressure to deliver.
Here’s how this shift is landing on tech leaders:
Tighter project budgets
Budgeting has always been a tense conversation for IT and tech leaders. It has always been about strategically pulling every dollar between scaling infrastructure, shipping new features, and funding AI pilots that promise the next big advantage.
Now, with a six-figure hiring fee attached to every non-U.S. talent, the conversation turns into a grind. The money once dedicated to a product launch or a faster time-to-market is swallowed by immigration paperwork.
According to Clutch, the average cost of a software development project is $132,480.29. But imagine having the $100k part of the budget allocated to hiring a tech team member, which means incurring exorbitant spending, which could impact the organization’s finances.
Eventually, this leads to delayed projects, trimmed roadmaps, and could force leaders to justify shifting funds away from growth.
The tech talent pipeline gap
Entry-level hires are the first casualty of this new development. Professor Clemens, in a PBS interview, notes that companies won’t want to risk $100,000 on untested workers, and this could wipe out the junior-to-senior pipeline that fuels long-term growth.
Internships and early-career programs that once attracted global talent and developed them into future leaders will now become more narrow. Many companies may only consider U.S. candidates, limiting diversity and excluding access to fresh perspectives.
The greater impact is what we are more likely to experience in the future. The fee sets the stage for tomorrow’s leadership gaps, particularly in the tech sector. And what happens when there is no next generation of global talent to help growing businesses stay competitive?
Global competition heats up
It’s an expected reaction from companies to adjust their hiring strategies.
Some who operate in other countries may start expanding their teams to other locations beyond the U.S. Others may start exploring different outsourcing models, such as offshore, onshore, and near-shore, or even pause hiring.
Then, if companies in the U.S. slow down on their hiring processes, this opens the door for other countries to step in. China, for example, has already launched a new visa program to attract top talent in the STEM field.
Over time, this redirection of talent strengthens global competitors while U.S. businesses spend more for fewer results. As competitors abroad get talent faster and at a lower cost, this means they can ship products quickly, innovate more aggressively, and gain market share that U.S. firms can’t easily win back.
Nearshoring as the Competitive Edge in Tech Talent Sourcing
It’s no longer sustainable for growing businesses to source tech talent through visas.
Policies can shift overnight without warning. Even if H-1B visas remain part of your hiring mix, pairing them with another approach is how you cut costs and reduce risk. That’s why many organizations are starting to lean heavily on nearshoring.
Nearshoring is not a new idea, but the momentum is growing. Companies, especially in IT infrastructure and application development, are finding it a reliable way to secure talent as internal hiring becomes more constrained.
Source: Join Genius
Here’s how nearshoring helps you cut through the chaos of the expensive hiring process and keep your pipeline full:
Access to a Diverse Pool of Talents
The primary goal of H-1B sponsorship has always been to access the best global expertise. Companies want engineers, data scientists, and specialists who can solve complex problems and accelerate growth.
Nearshoring offers that same access without visa bottlenecks or six-figure fees. It is faster, more predictable, and still provides the global diversity you need.
Take GAP as an example. We are a nearshore tech consulting company with a highly diversified pool of tech experts. Our Gapsters include more than 600 top-tier tech professionals across Latin America. We have experts in areas such as:
- Software Engineering
- Data Science and Data Engineering
- AI and Machine Learning
- Quality Assurance (Automation and Manual Testing)
- DevOps and Cloud Engineering
- Web Development
Nearshoring is the fastest way to access specialized talent pools, without having to go through the burden of interviewing a large number of candidates. When you partner with us, you tap into a vetted network of tech experts ready to move your projects forward.
Cultural and Time Zone Alignment
One benefit of the H-1B model has always been cultural immersion. When international hires relocate to the U.S., they quickly adapt to company values and work on the same schedule as their teams.
However, with sponsorship costs now exceeding those gains, nearshoring has become a faster and more practical alternative.
Nearshore teams work within the same or very close time zones as U.S. companies. Cultural differences are minimal, which means collaboration feels natural from day one. This is especially true when you hire Latin American tech talents.
Countries like Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina share overlapping work hours with the U.S., making it easier to stay in sync. Teams can communicate in real time, make decisions faster, and keep feedback loops tight, without the delays common with offshore models.
It delivers the same level of collaboration you’d expect from onshoring, but at a fraction of the cost.
Cost Resilience
Nearshoring offers a cost-effective alternative to the H-1B visas by keeping hiring expenses predictable and free from sudden shocks. Labor costs across Latin America, for example, are significantly lower, and pricing models used by some tech companies make scaling teams far more sustainable.
According to Statista, as of January 2025, Costa Rica had the highest minimum monthly wage in Latin America at $726 USD.
Even in higher-paying markets like Costa Rica, building teams through nearshoring is far more affordable than sponsoring just one H-1B worker in the U.S., where the median salary for computer-related roles was $123,600 in 2023, not including the new six-figure visa fee.
What does this translate to? Diverse talent pool, innovation, and a faster time to the market for product teams
Scalable Growth
One of the biggest bottlenecks in H-1B hiring is the time it takes. The process can take six months to over a year, with no guarantee of approval due to annual lottery caps. For companies racing to launch products or expand teams, those delays could create costly setbacks.
With nearshoring, you can avoid these delays. In a few weeks of vetting the tech vendor to work with, your teams are ready to hit the ground running. It’s also flexible, allowing you to scale up when projects demand it and resize when priorities shift.
This creates freedom and the ability to grow at the pace of your business, not the pace of bureaucracy.
Hoping for Relief From the $100K Fee?
There may be relief down the road, or there may not. Even if policy shifts eventually, consider the cost of waiting, the time, resources, and opportunities lost while pursuing global talent through an uncertain system.
And what if nothing changes?
Well, every quarter lost to hiring delays is a quarter where products slip, competitors gain ground, and momentum slows. Tech leaders who act quickly to pivot away from unstable visa models are the ones who will keep projects moving and teams competitive.
At the same time, you can’t afford to be in the reactive leaders’ zone, waiting out the policy storm and hoping conditions improve. This is the time to future-proof your growth by leveraging nearshore teams to secure stable, cost-effective, and scalable talent pipelines.
Survival in today’s market hinges on the speed and precision of execution.
The Way Forward
The smartest move in today’s talent landscape is cutting free from visa uncertainty and securing a stable, scalable pipeline through nearshoring.
GAP has been helping U.S. companies do exactly that for years. As a nearshore technology partner, we’ve worked with hundreds of organizations across the U.S., providing them with access to top-tier engineers, data experts, and AI specialists in Latin America.
It’s your turn to talk to us.
We offer a complimentary consultation to guide you through how nearshoring with us can provide your business with the talent edge it needs now.
