Huge US visa fee could open tech job doors for Africa

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed a new $103,265 fee for H-1B work visas, replacing the $100,000 charge President Trump introduced in September 2025. The new fee comes paired with a wage-weighted lottery system.

The original fee was meant to discourage US companies from hiring foreign workers abroad. But the data show something else happened. By February 2026, only about 70 employers had actually paid the $100,000 fee. Instead, big companies like OpenAI, Stripe, Databricks, and Anthropic changed tactics: rather than hiring new people from overseas, they started poaching workers who already held H-1B visas in the US from other firms.

OpenAI, for example, logged 126 such internal transfers this year, compared with just 21 new hires from abroad the year before. Smaller firms were hit hardest by the added costs, unable to compete with bigger players.

Why does this matter for Africa? Because a fee this large makes it cheaper for US tech companies to simply hire people where they already are — in Lagos, Nairobi, or Cape Town, for instance — rather than pay six figures to bring them to America. That could open up more remote tech job opportunities across Africa, including Tanzania.

Still, it's not certain the new $103,265 fee will be finalized as proposed. There's also an ongoing court case in Oakland, California, questioning whether the original fee was even legal. Both the case's outcome and how much African tech hubs will actually benefit remain unclear.