Regardless of increased fee, majority of H1-B visa applications are from Indian companies

It remains to be seen how much has increased H1-B visa fee by the US impacted the Indian companies but the maximum number of H1-B visas this year has been from India only.

As per the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, it received nearly 250,000 petitions for H-1B visas, out of which majority of them was either from Indian companies or had huge footprint in India.

The US department said it reached the Congressional mandated cap for H-1B visas in the general category and also the 20,000 for those who completed higher education from inside the US in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

"We had 230,000 H-1B visa petitions last year. I think, this year it is going to be higher. We think 250,000 H-1B petitions were filed this year," Bill Stock, incoming president of American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and a founding partner of Klasko Immigration Law Partners told in an interview.

This is fourth consecutive year that the Congressional mandated cap has been reached in the first five days of the filing. "Unless the economy changes again, we would continue to see it," he said.

Majority of these estimated 250,000 H-1B visa applications are "certainly" either by companies that have Indian owner like TCS or companies that have substantial operations or development centres in India like IBM, Stock said in response to a question.

The recent increase on certain category of H-1B visas, he said, "may have had a little impact" on Indian companies. "But I think their business so much depends on H-1B and being able to send people on projects, they (Indian companies) are going to pay fees on those petitions," Stock said.