H-1B visa filings fell at main monetary corporations like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan final 12 months, whereas different main corporations, like Citi, elevated their petitions in comparison with the identical time the earlier 12 months.
That is the primary information obtainable displaying how the monetary business reacted to President Donald Trump’s changes to the work visa program, which made new purposes dearer.
The Division of Labor information reveals that the monetary corporations that filed essentially the most licensed H-1B purposes within the first quarter of fiscal 12 months 2026 filed 10% lower than they did in the identical interval the 12 months earlier than. The federal fiscal 12 months’s first quarter runs from October by way of December.
Certified H-1B and similar visa applications are those who the Labor Division has reviewed to make sure that a potential immigrant employee will likely be paid equally to different employees in related roles, and will not adversely have an effect on employment for these employees.
The named corporations both declined to remark or didn’t reply to requests for remark.
H-1B applications fell sharply within the tech business throughout the identical time interval, with all main corporations Enterprise Insider analyzed seeing reductions aside from Nvidia.
20 of the financial firms which can be the most important customers of this system within the quarter, the corporations filed 25% fewer than they did the earlier 12 months.
JPMorgan Chase noticed the most important drop in filings, from 724 licensed purposes from October by way of December 2024 to 516 a 12 months later, a virtually 29% lower. The change in purposes dropped it from the most important monetary agency person of this system within the first quarter of final fiscal 12 months to the second greatest person in the identical quarter of this fiscal 12 months. The agency’s H-1B filings look like largely centered on tech roles.
The most important proportion lower within the quarter got here from Goldman Sachs, seeing a greater than 60% drop from 256 filings to 101. The agency’s remaining filings embody a mixture of front-office monetary roles and technical roles.
Whereas these two monetary titans had a lower in filings, a few of their massive banking opponents have truly seen their filings rise 12 months over 12 months, with Citi’s filings up almost 20%, Barclays’ up almost two-thirds, and Morgan Stanley’s up greater than 1 / 4. Citi and Barclays’ filings present a mixture of monetary and technical employees, whereas Morgan Stanley’s filings don’t present the underlying job perform.
One other firm with a extra modest 4% year-over-year improve, Capital One, filed for a lot of information science- and machine-learning-oriented roles, together with director-level roles in information engineering and information science, and a machine studying senior lead position.
The figures solely mirror Labor Division certifications, not last visa approvals or lottery choices. A number of filings can correspond to a single employee. And whereas Q1 numbers provide a preliminary snapshot, annual tallies may additionally fluctuate based mostly on hiring cycles or different components.
Trump’s administration has made some main modifications to the H-1B program, together with a $100,000 fee unveiled late final September, social media vetting necessities, and a wage-based lottery system that offers the highest-paid candidates a greater likelihood within the annual H-1B lottery.
The H-1B lottery, which passed off final month, is often when the lion’s share of purposes are filed. When these filings are launched, the impression of Trump’s coverage will likely be made clearer. Immigration lawyers beforehand informed Enterprise Insider that fixed coverage shifts and uncertainty are inflicting many firms to curb their sponsorship of labor visas.
The dip in filings additionally comes as worry is rising about generative AI’s potential impression on white-collar workforces, particularly technical employees, who are sometimes among the many principal targets of H-1B-sponsored hiring.
