Techies’ ‘ghar wapsi’ will be boon for offshoring: Experts after $100k fees imposed on H1-B visa

American President Donald Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee is expected to trigger a sharper wave of offshoring by global IT firms while sparking a ‘ ghar wapsi ’ among Indian tech professionals to India.

Indian IT leaders, however, appeared largely unfazed at the development. Most CEOs said their companies have built resilient operating models offshore and nearshore designed to withstand immigration-related disruptions. Many Indian IT firms have already reduced their reliance on H-1B visas to well below 50%, signalling the industry’s shift towards stronger offshore and near-shore delivery models.“Over the past several years, Indian IT firms have significantly reduced their reliance on the H-1B visa, with filings dropping by over 50%.

This shift is a result of our ongoing strategy to hire more locally, invest in automation, and enhance our global delivery models. While visa fees may change, the impact on our business will be minimal, as we’ve already adapted to this evolving landscape,” CP Gurnani, founder & vice chairman, AionOS.What industry observers are arguing is how the new visa fee, if implemented, could reshape the IT talent landscape globally.

Vivek Wadhwa, CEO of Vionix Biosciences and former distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon, warned of long-term consequences for the US.“Trump’s $100,000 H-1B fee is economic suicide for America. It will force Indian talent to go home, taking with them skills, savings, and global experience. Indian engineers have been trapped in limbo for years because of endless visa backlogs. Trump has just pushed them to make the obvious choice: return home where opportunities are greater.”

Wadhwa added that the reverse talent flow would benefit India enormously.

“They will bring capital, networks, and the knowhow of scaling companies globally.”Phil Fersht, CEO of US-based HfS Research, said while the new policy’s practical longevity is questionable, there would be impacts to track. “This policy may not survive in court or Congress, but the damage is already done. It has jolted the industry into fast-tracking automation and near-shoring.

Even if the $100,000 fee is overturned, providers and clients will lock in new strategies that reduce reliance on H-1Bs.

In effect, the policy acts as a catalyst. It may not last, but it will accelerate structural change in how global IT services are delivered.”Among Indian companies, steps to reduce H-1B reliance have been afoot for some time. IT major TCS has built a formidable onshore presence in North America with over 46,000 employees across 32 locations, including key hubs in New York, Edison, Cincinnati, Santa Clara, Phoenix, and Austin.

Infosys employs 34,388 professionals in the Americas, while HCLTech has more than 23,000 employees in the US, with 75% of its workforce locally hired.Asked whether Trump’s return as US president would accelerate near-shore strategies to ensure uninterrupted delivery for clients, TCS CEO Krithivasan had said in Jan, “On an annual basis, we get between 3,000 and 4,000 H-1B visas for a workforce of over 600,000. That’s a very small number.

Even within the US, more than 50% of the workforce is locally hired. On an incremental hiring basis, we probably hire much more than 50% every year in the US compared to the H-1B workforce.

So, our dependence on H-1B is quite limited. Near-shore exists because we sometimes want to provide sametime zone service to our customers. We are not particularly worried about any immigration reforms or changes in immigrant regulations.”Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka reinforced this shift in Jan, explaining how the company has steadily reduced its visa dependency. “We used to be at the 30% rate, but now we are at 24%. Within that, our nearshore has increased significantly. And within the US onsite population that we have, our H-1 independent folks are now over 60%. We have now built a pretty resilient model from that perspective. And we are, therefore, much more confident from where we are versus where we used to be earlier,” he said.On the other hand, venture capitalist Deedy Das, partner at Menlo Ventures, highlighted the implications on social media platform X: “Most BigTech companies have <15% of the workforce on H-1B... If you have to pay a $100k tax for 15k engineers that could be a $1.5B payout for a large company. This might push them to consider hiring less in the US and move offices offshore even faster than they already do. It creates a disincentive to attract the world’s smartest talent to the US.

They have to pay a high education price and may now not be able to easily recoup it with a job. If the US ceases to attract the best talent, it drastically reduces its ability to innovate and grow the economy. It makes the US’ global competitiveness a lot worse.”The Indian tech industry’s contributions to the US economy remain significant. According to a joint report by Nasscom and S&P Global, Indian IT firms employed 207,000 people in the US in 2021, with an average wage of $106,360.

This represented a 22% increase over 2017. The report further noted that the Indian technology sector generated $103 billion in revenue from the US market in 2021. By supporting American enterprises, Indian IT firms indirectly generated a total of $396 billion in US sales output, supported 1.6 million jobs, and contributed more than $198 billion to the US economy.Against this backdrop, Trump’s new H-1B visa fee may act as a shortterm political lever, but its long-term effects could undermine US competitiveness while accelerating India’s role as a global hub for technology talent and innovation. It stands to bring back H-1B professionals armed with deep domain expertise, strong global networks, and the knowhow to scale firms to their next phase of growth. In effect, experts believe what Trump is really doing is driving innovation out of the US and handing India an economic gift that could define the next decade.