H-1B visa approvals for Indian IT firms plunge by 70% as US tech giants ramp up AI hiring

 

India’s biggest IT firms secured just 4,573 H-1B approvals for new employment in FY 2025, a 70% collapse from 2015 and down 37% from last year, underscoring a dramatic shift in how global tech talent is flowing into the United States. While Indian IT companies pull back from the visa route, US tech giants are pouring billions into artificial intelligence and aggressively hiring foreign-born workers, including fresh graduates, to build AI capabilities at home.

According to the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), TCS was the only Indian IT firm among the top five for continuing-employment approvals. Even so, its extension rejection rate climbed to 7% in FY 2025, up from 4% in FY 2024, and well above its peers.

NFAP data shows the denial rate for continuing-employment H-1B petitions remained low at 1.9% in FY 2025, nearly unchanged from 1.8% in FY 2024 and below the 2.4% rate recorded in FY 2023.

This year, TCS received 5,293 approvals for continued employment and 846 for initial employment, a steep fall from 1,452 such approvals last year.

Only three Indian companies made it to the list of the top 25 employers with approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2025, Newsweek reported.

US tech firms ramp up H-1B hiring, Indian IT firms decline

Stuart Anderson, executive director of NFAP, said Indian IT firms now use far fewer H-1B visas, while US companies are building massive in-house AI capacity.

"The numbers show Indian-based companies now deliver IT services to US businesses using relatively few H-1B visas, while the largest US technology companies are hiring many individuals, including recent foreign-born graduate students from US universities, to help build AI in the United States after investing several hundred billion dollars to develop artificial intelligence," Anderson told Newsweek.

The NFAP analysis draws from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ H-1B Employer Data Hub. All data reflects the period before the Trump administration’s strictest measures on high-skilled foreign hiring, including a proposed $100,000 fee for each new H-1B recipient.

Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Google dominate initial H-1B approvals

In FY 2025, Amazon topped the list with 4,644 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment, followed by Meta Platforms (1,555), Microsoft (1,394) and Google (1,050), marking the first time the top four slots have gone exclusively to US companies.

TCS stood out as the only Indian IT services firm in the top five, with 846 initial approvals.

For continuing employment, Amazon again led with 14,532 approvals, followed by TCS (5,293), Microsoft (4,863), Meta (4,740), Apple (4,610) and Google (4,509), NFAP said.

H-1B petitions for initial employment count toward the annual 65,000 visa cap, with an additional 20,000 exemptions for US advanced-degree holders, leaving TCS as the sole Indian company among the top five.

Among other Indian firms, LTIMindtree ranked 20th and HCL America ranked 21st, just managing to stay within the top 25.