Trump’s $100K H-1B fee was meant to slow foreign tech hiring. It may not be working.

Nine months since the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on first-time H-1B visa approvals took effect, some top unicorns are actually hiring more H-1B employees than they did before, according to a PitchBook analysis of federal employment data .

The hefty fee—which President Donald Trump cast as a way to curb H-1B hiring and steer well-paid technical jobs to American workers—has widened the gap between the best-funded startups and everyone else .

Employment experts say the uptick in hiring of foreign workers among the top 30 US startups by valuation reflects the cutthroat race for AI talent. The best-funded labs are competing for a thin pool of senior researchers and engineers , and the fee, so far, has done little to deter companies sitting on billions in venture capital.

OpenAI , for instance, landed 27 H-1B approvals in the first half of fiscal 2026, already surpassing its full-year fiscal 2025 total of 21, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Stripe had 46, up from 23. The data reflects all approved first-time H-1B visa applications, including hires from abroad, which trigger the fee, as well as H-1B sponsorships for people already in the US, which do not.

“There is a correlation between dry powder and hiring, and there is also a correlation between the haves and the have-nots,” said Jody Thelander, founder and CEO of compensation specialist J. Thelander Consulting.

Founders and VCs outside the top unicorns have been especially critical of the fee’s outsized impact on their limited cash. Their attorneys say the companies are pumping the brakes on new applications as a result.

Maxine Bayley, a partner at Duane Morris focused on immigration law, has had zero clients pay the fee so far. That’s because they’ve shifted their hiring practices, she said, prioritizing H-1B transfers from other companies and other hiring mechanisms that do not trigger the $100,000 fee.

For the biggest AI labs, poaching may be displacing importing. Many are hiring visa holders from other companies.