The Trump administration has asked a federal appeals court to overturn a judge who froze agency policies implementing a 100,000-dollar charge against businesses that hire H-1B visa workers from outside the United States, according to Bloomberg Law.
The October 9 appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit comes more than a week after a California court blocked US Citizenship and Immigration Services and Customs and Border Protection memoranda and guidance that addressed topics such as how to pay the fee.
Two courts have now blocked the fee
Those policies cannot be enforced, either under President Donald Trump’s original September 2025 fee proclamation or a recent extension, until notice-and-comment rulemaking is complete, Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of the Northern District of California said on September 30.
A second federal judge had already blocked the fee. A Massachusetts court struck it down in June in a case brought by 20 states, and a Boston-based appeals court in July declined to pause that decision, according to Reuters.
What the appeal does not change
Government attorneys also requested a stay of Gilliam’s order, noting that the First and District of Columbia circuits are hearing similar challenges against the fee. They said the dispute will likely reach the US Supreme Court and pausing the order would preserve the courts’ and the parties’ resources.
The appeal does not bring the fee back. Two federal court orders still bar the agencies from collecting it, according to Bloomberg Law and other reports. The court order does not affect the Department of Homeland Security’s separately proposed 103,265-dollar fee for H-1B cap-subject petitions, which remains in the rulemaking process and is not currently in effect.
For employers, the practical effect of the court orders is that the 100,000-dollar payment is not currently collectable, but the legal position could change on appeal. Companies considering a new H-1B petition are therefore being advised to check which rules apply to their specific filing before submitting it, rather than assuming the fee is either permanently gone or back in force. The separate rulemaking for a permanent fee, if finalised, would raise different legal questions and would likely face its own court challenges.
