By Nicole Forbes
As 2025 winds down and budgets for 2026 take shape, HR leaders received a major curveball: Starting with the 2026 lottery cycle, H-1B visas for skilled non-immigrant international workers will come with a $100,000 administrative fee, up from around $2,000 to $10,000 today.
For more than three decades, U.S. businesses have relied on the H-1B program to strengthen their talent pipelines. Even with current caps in place, estimates show that there may be over 1 million H-1B visa recipients and dependents currently living in the United States, fueling innovation for organizations of all sizes—from startups to some of the biggest companies in the world, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Walmart.
This policy change makes accessing that talent far more complex and costly. It also lands at a time when companies are already struggling to hire: G-P’s 2025 World at Work Report finds 84% of executives say they can’t find the skilled talent they need in their markets. Add a non-refundable $100,000 fee, legal expenses, and no guarantee of petition outcomes, and the traditional H-1B path becomes an increasingly risky bet.
It’s time for a pivot.
While this change might feel like a setback, it’s also an opportunity to rethink how and where companies find talent. Instead of relocating skilled professionals to the United States, companies can hire them where they already live. Borderless hiring through an employer of record (EOR) opens up access to global talent pools, quickly, compliantly, and at a fraction of the cost.
But it shouldn’t be thought of as a temporary workaround. Taking a long-term approach, borderless hiring enables organizations to build a more diversified and resilient workforce capable of adapting to economic, geopolitical, and technological shifts.
Faster Access, Better Odds
Consider the math: In the 2025 H-1B lottery, VisaNation Law Group calculated that just 21.8% of applicants had their petitions selected. Even for advanced degree holders, odds were about 34%. With the new fee structure, companies could soon face a one in five chance at the cost of $100,000 per entry at least six months to a year onboarding a new hire, assuming their petition is successful—time and money few can afford.
Contrast that with borderless hiring, which taps into the same global desires, without the need for relocation. The 2025 World at Work Report finds that 51% of employees around the world want to work for a global company next, and this number jumps to 55% for Gen Zers and 58% for millennials.
By partnering with an EOR, companies can hire talent legally and efficiently without geographic limits. It’s a 100% predictable route to the right talent—no lotteries, no waiting periods, and no $100,000 entry fee.
Building Long-Term Resilience
If recent years have taught organizations anything, it’s that resilience is non-negotiable. From pandemic supply chain disruptions to shifting trade policies and climate driven events, uncertainty is constant. In fact, 64% of executives surveyed by G-P say their company can’t handle today’s geopolitical, economic, and tech disruptions.
However, disruptions are not always equally distributed. For example, not every country has recovered in the same way from COVID-19, and the economic impacts of tariffs and other trade changes seem like they will also be felt unevenly around the world. Or consider extreme weather. A blog posted to the European Central Bank flatly stated that the “European economy is not drought-proof.” Droughts can decrease productivity and economic activity. These are just three examples of business-altering and mostly unpredictable global events, but the list is long and growing longer.
Centralized hiring models, like relying on H-1B talent, only heighten exposure. Borderless hiring distributes that risk. When one market experiences disruption, operations in others can continue—the odds of an entire team going offline decrease significantly.
In practice, this means greater business continuity and productivity, even when faced with global headwinds.
Laying the Groundwork for 2026 and Beyond
Borderless hiring isn’t without complexity. Legal, regulatory, and compliance considerations vary across countries and can change quickly. But with the right groundwork and the right EOR partner, those challenges are manageable.
Companies can either set up their own legal entities (a process that can take over six months) or partner with a global employment leader with the technology and infrastructure to help hire and manage a global workforce.
The 2026 H-1B visa lottery is expected to open in just a few months. Instead of reshuffling budgets to fit in $100,000 visa fees, HR and legal teams can use that time to build sustainable global hiring strategies.
In a world where disruption is the norm, distributing the workforce isn’t just a compliance solution, it's a competitive advantage. The organizations that embrace borderless hiring today will be the ones best positioned to grow, innovate, and thrive in 2026 and beyond.
Nicole Forbes is deputy general counsel at G-P.