As US President ‘s administration tightens immigration policies, including a $100,000 fee for certain new H-1B applications and a wage-weighted selection system introduced for fiscal year 2027, H-1B registrations by major IT companies such as Cognizant, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have dropped in the FY2027 lottery.
According to data in a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published on 14 October, submitted 100% fewer registrations than in the previous year, while Infosys’ registrations declined by 91% and TCS’s plunged by 95%.
The report, “H-1B Executive Actions in 2026”, comes at a time when the Trump administration has announced changes to selection and fees as the government seeks to prioritise higher-paid workers and address what it calls abuse of the programme.
H-1B registrations by Indian IT giants decline significantly
According to data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the company-level figures highlight the scale of the decline. submitted 759 registrations for FY2027, down from 8,886 in FY2026, while TCS’s total declined to 284 from 5,955. Cognizant recorded no registrations, compared with 3,752 the previous year.
A Federal Register publication dated 23 September 2026 also highlighted the decline, reporting that combined H-1B registrations by the largest IT staffing and outsourcing firms fell by roughly 92%, from 24,946 to 2,055.
The figures cover entries in the annual H-1B cap selection process, rather than the companies’ total H-1B workforce. They do not indicate that current visa holders have lost their status.
Higher H-1B visa fees, wage-weighted selection system affect registrations
According to the CRS report, the wage-weighted selection system, introduced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in February this year, was used for the FY2027 H-1B lottery. The fiscal year began this month. The weighted selection process is designed to favour highly skilled and higher-paid workers.
Employers have also faced a $100,000 fee introduced last September for certain new H-1B workers entering the US from abroad. In the first eight months after it took effect, initial H-1B petitions requesting consular processing from employers exempt from the annual visa cap fell by 91% compared with the same period a year earlier.
What does the decline mean for Indian IT workers?
According to a Hindustan Times report, the sharp decline in registrations may indicate that Indian IT firms are changing how they staff US projects, potentially placing greater reliance on workers already in the country, visa extensions, transfers and local recruitment. Infosys, TCS and Cognizant reduced fresh registrations against a backdrop of rising costs and changes to the H-1B selection process.
While the registration figures alone cannot establish the number of jobs lost or how many Indian professionals will ultimately be able to work in the US, they indicate a substantial decline in fresh lottery registrations by some of the largest IT companies employing Indian professionals, despite accounting for the biggest share of H-1B visa holders in the US.