Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft Top in Receiving H-1B Visa Aapprovals, Indian Companies Lag

Amid the ongoing buzz over the H-1B visa processing, tech majors Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have become the gainers, topping the list of companies which received the highest number of H-1B visa approvals for initial employment in FY 2025 for the first time, a report by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) analysing US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data revealed.

According to the report, while Amazon received 4644 petition approvals, it stands at 1555 for Meta Platforms, 1394 for Microsoft and 1050 for Google. The approvals are not solely for individual employees, as the incumbent employees can be approved multiple times with their job-shifting prospects, resulting in a misrepresentation of the data.

The appointments made by these companies are predominantly based on their Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related investments worth 380 billion dollars and mark US tech giants' dominance in appointing foreign skilled workers over offshore companies despite the new restrictions imposed by the US government.

Performance of Indian Companies

Unlike in the past, the Indian companies have not fared well in the current year as the restrictions imposed by the Trump government boosted the US companies' performance. Only three Indian companies have been listed in the top 25 employers compared to 7 in the previous year.

Approval Rate Falls

H-1B applications for initial employment, pertaining to the new appointments have been restricted to 65,000 visas with 20,000 extra visas reserving for people with advance qualifications from the Universities, making it a total of 85,000 new visas.

In the Financial Year 2025, out of 442,000 applications 3,00,000 applicants were rejected, because only 85,000 slots were existed and as the selection was done through lottery, the many qualified applicants may miss the chance.

Experts argue that the number is very nominal, accounting to only 0.05 per cent of the US labor force and the demand for skilled workers in the country is very high. The companies are struggling with the shortage of expertise.

NFAP Findings

The report revealed that significant number of US employers has been depending on H-1B visas to appoint skilled workers from abroad. Almost 28,277 companies have appointed at least one H-1B visa holder. While 61% of them have received approval for only one H-1B petition, the rest gained 10 or fewer approvals.

There were 68,167 applications approved for change of employer category. The rejection rate of the application for the initial employment has risen to 2.8 per cent in Fy 2025 from 2.5 in Fy 2024.

Employers in the United States need to pay not only the salaries of these employees but also bare the legal and government fees while hiring workers under the H-1B visa program. While the filing the first petition costs as much as 34,900 dollars, and the total could rise to 50,000 dollars. These figures also include the extra expenses if the employer sponsors the worker for permanent residency.

At the same time, demand for skilled workers has remained strong. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that unemployment in computer and mathematics jobs dropped from 3.4 percent to 3.0 percent between August 2024 and August 2025. In architecture and engineering, unemployment fell from 1.7 percent to 1.4 percent during the same period.

The states with the highest number of approved H-1B petitions for new jobs in 2025 were California with 21,559 approvals, Texas with 12,613, New York with 11,436, New Jersey with 7,729, and Virginia with 7,579. Looking at cities, New York had the most approvals with 7,811, followed by Arlington in Virginia with 4,836, Chicago with 2,923, San Jose with 2,383, Santa Clara with 2,286, and San Francisco with 2,222.

The industries that hired the most H-1B workers in 2025 were professional, scientific, and technical services. Other industries included education, healthcare, social assistance, manufacturing, information technology, finance, and insurance.

Analysts also warn against the idea that there is a fixed number of jobs. Data shows that both foreign-born and US-born workers can grow together in the workforce. Between 2003 and 2024, the number of US-born employees working in computer science and mathematics increased by more than 2.7 million, which is a rise of 141 percent.