Three major IT services companies with extensive operations in India have sharply reduced their participation in the US H-1B visa lottery, with Cognizant submitting no registrations for the fiscal year 2027 lottery, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Cognizant, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which were among the companies with the highest numbers of entries in the previous year's lottery, recorded declines of 100 per cent, 91 per cent and 95 per cent, respectively, the report said. The CRS published its report, H-1B Executive Actions in 2026, on October 14.
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The figures come as US President Donald Trump's administration introduces changes to the H-1B programme, which allows American employers to hire foreign professionals for jobs requiring specialised knowledge and a university degree. The measures include higher potential hiring costs, changes to how applicants are selected and closer scrutiny of employers.
The report identifies the sharp fall in registrations as evidence that companies which previously entered large numbers of candidates into the lottery are now submitting significantly fewer entries. However, it does not establish that the immigration crackdown alone caused the decline or explain the individual decisions made by the three companies.
Why US companies face higher H-1B hiring costs
One of the most significant changes came in September 2025, when the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 fee for US employers petitioning to bring certain new H-1B workers from abroad. The fee was in effect for most of the following year but is temporarily blocked amid ongoing litigation, the CRS report said.
In August 2026, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a separate fee of $103,265 for each H-1B petition subject to the annual visa cap. This is a proposal and is distinct from the earlier $100,000 fee.
The Department of Labour has also proposed increasing the minimum wages employers must offer H-1B workers. The proposed changes would raise the wage benchmarks at all four skill levels, from entry-level positions to the most experienced roles. The department estimates that the changes could increase employers' costs by about $1.46 billion in the first year.
For IT services companies that hire professionals for projects in the US, such measures could make overseas recruitment more expensive and affect decisions about how and where to deploy employees. However, the report does not quantify the financial impact on Infosys, TCS or Cognizant individually.
H-1B lottery now favours higher-paid workers
The US has also changed how candidates are selected for H-1B visas. In February 2026, the Department of Homeland Security introduced a weighted selection system to favour higher-skilled and higher-paid workers, replacing the previous random selection process. The new system first applied to the lottery for employment starting in October 2026.
This change is important because selection is no longer based solely on a random draw. The new approach gives greater weight to higher-paid positions, potentially affecting employers' recruitment strategies and the types of roles for which they seek visas.
The administration has also increased scrutiny of companies hiring foreign workers. In July 2026, the Department of Labour announced an investigation into suspected fraud, human trafficking and coercive wage kickbacks in the H-1B programme. Its enforcement efforts build on Project Firewall, launched in 2025 to investigate suspected violations, including the displacement of US workers and inadequate recruitment of American candidates.
In September 2026, Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to consider whether employers sponsoring H-1B workers had carried out or planned layoffs during the preceding year when assessing relevant applications and petitions.
What the decline means for Indian IT professionals
The steep fall in registrations by the three companies highlights the changing environment for Indian technology professionals seeking to work in the US through employer-sponsored visas. The impact, however, cannot be measured by lottery registrations alone.
An H-1B registration is an entry into the selection process, not an approved visa or a confirmed job placement. Fewer registrations therefore do not automatically mean that the same proportion of visas or jobs has been lost.
The CRS report also found that initial H-1B petitions requiring consular processing from employers exempt from the annual visa cap fell by 91 per cent during the first eight months in which the $100,000 fee was in effect, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Taken together, these figures point to a significant change in employer participation amid tighter US immigration rules. For Indian professionals, the developments underline the importance of understanding how employer sponsorship, salary levels and visa eligibility may affect opportunities to work in the US.