Federal Court Strikes Down Trump's $100k H-1B Fee

The decision came from the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, in Boston. US District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled in *State of California, et al. v. Markwayne Mullin, et al.* (Case No. 1:25-cv-13829), a case filed on December 12, 2025 by 20 Democratic state attorneys general. The ruling came down on June 8, 2026.

The judge ruled the $100,000 charge from the September 2025 proclamation was an unauthorized tax. The court wrote that "the substance and application of the $100,000 payment reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called." The court also said the policy was beyond what the law allowed and procedurally flawed under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Before the proclamation, the H-1B petition fee paid by employers had ranged from about $2,000 to $5,000 per application. The $100,000 charge was meant to apply only to new petitions filed for workers abroad (consular processing); in-US change-of-status filings were exempt from the start. The Boston ruling now removes the $100,000 charge across the board, for the time being.

The whole ruling turned on one question: is the $100,000 a tax or a fee? Under the US Constitution, only Congress can impose taxes. A regulatory fee, by contrast, can be set by an agency or the President when the law allows it.

The court said the $100,000 was a tax for three reasons. First, its purpose was to raise revenue: the court wrote that "an obvious purpose of the Policy is to raise revenue" and that "every $100,000 payment made pursuant to the Policy does raise revenue." Second, the amount has no clear connection to any actual cost of processing an H-1B petition. Third, the court said the charge "plainly does not constitute an adjudication fee."

There is a real conflict here. In December 2025, a different federal district court in Washington DC upheld the same $100,000 fee in a separate challenge. Now the Boston court has struck it down. Two federal trial courts have ruled opposite ways on the same policy.

When federal trial courts disagree like this, the question moves up to the courts of appeals (the "circuit courts"). For the Boston ruling, that is the First Circuit. For the DC ruling, that would be the DC Circuit. If the two appeals also reach opposite results, the issue could go to the Supreme Court to settle the split.

The timing is hard to predict. Circuit courts usually take months, and Supreme Court review is slow and selective.

For the moment, the $100,000 payment is not required for USCIS to approve a new H-1B petition for a worker abroad. The Boston court directed the government to stop collecting it. Since the September 2025 proclamation, the $100,000 had been the single largest new cost for H-1B sponsors.

But the government has said it will appeal in short order, and it can also ask the First Circuit Court of Appeals to put the ruling on hold while the appeal is pending. If the higher court agrees to put the ruling on hold, the $100,000 fee comes back into effect across the country until the appeal is decided. That request could come within days.

The Boston ruling is fresh, and the legal situation is moving. Here is the practical sequence to work through this week, depending on where your case stands:

The court did not address refunds for petitions where the $100,000 had already been paid before the ruling. There is no automatic refund mechanism in the order itself.

What that probably means in practice: any refund or credit will need either USCIS implementation guidance (most likely if the ruling is not paused) or a separate legal motion. Both routes take time.

For now: keep your payment records, the I-129 receipt, the petition receipt notice, and any payment confirmation. If a refund process emerges, those documents are what you will need.

The government has said it will appeal in short order. The appeal will go to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Boston. The government can also request an emergency stay, asking the First Circuit to put the Boston ruling on hold while the appeal is decided. Stays in cases like this are sometimes granted within days, sometimes weeks.

If the First Circuit eventually rules and ends up disagreeing with the DC Circuit on the same policy, you have a classic "circuit split." That kind of split is one of the main reasons the Supreme Court takes a case. A Supreme Court decision is the next stop after that, but the path takes many months or longer.

The honest read: this is the strongest ruling against the $100,000 fee so far, but the case is not over. Verify the live status (any stay motion, any First Circuit order, any USCIS guidance) before making a decision that depends on the fee being permanently gone.