US visa rules tighten: Indian students hit hardest, face 62% drop in F-1 approvals; new stay curbs

The numbers are stark. Between May and August 2025, the four months when most international students receive their US visas before the academic year begins, American consulates approved just 22,149 F-1 student visas for Indian nationals. That is a 62% drop from the 58,694 issued during the same window in 2024, and roughly 60% below the historical average of 55,717 approvals recorded across equivalent periods between 2017 and 2024.

For Chinese students, the decline was real but considerably less severe, falling 34% from 61,075 to 40,034 over the same timeframe.

The data, drawn from an analysis by the US-based Centre for Immigration Studies, reveals a sharply diverging trajectory for the two largest sources of international students in the United States, with Indian applicants bearing the brunt of the recent tightening.

India still leads total enrolment but for how long?

Despite the visa collapse, India remains the single largest source country for US higher education. During the 2024-25 academic year, American colleges and universities enrolled 363,019 students from India, according to the Institute of International Education. China ranked second with 265,919. Together, students from these two countries accounted for more than half of the 1.17 million international students at US institutions.

The gap between total enrolment and current visa approvals is significant. A sustained decline in new visas will eventually work its way through the pipeline, reducing future cohorts of Indian students on US campuses, and, down the line, the number of Indian graduates entering the American workforce.

The OPT pipeline at risk

The consequences extend beyond the classroom. The Optional Practical Training programme allows international graduates to work in the United States after completing their studies, and Indian nationals dominate its participation. Of the 294,253 graduates working under OPT during the 2024-25 academic year, 143,740 were Indian, nearly half the total. Chinese graduates accounted for another 61,981.

The dominance is even more pronounced in the STEM OPT extension, which permits graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to remain employed in the US for up to three years after graduation. Of the 165,524 STEM OPT authorisations issued in 2024, Indians received 79,331, almost half, compared with 33,807 for Chinese graduates.

A sustained fall in student visa approvals means fewer Indian graduates entering this pipeline in future years, with downstream effects on the technology and research sectors that have come to depend heavily on this talent pool.

What the Trump administration has changed

The visa decline coincides with a broad tightening of US immigration policy for international students. In July, the Department of Homeland Security finalised a rule that ends the longstanding practice of allowing F-1 students to remain in the country for the full duration of their studies without a fixed departure date. Under the new framework, effective September 15, most students will be permitted a stay of up to four years and must apply for an extension if their programme runs longer.

Other changes include cutting the post-graduation grace period from 60 to 30 days and introducing stricter conditions around transferring between institutions or changing academic programmes.

The OPT programme itself remains in place but is under active review, with proposals to scale it back under discussion within the administration. Should those proposals advance, the impact on Indian students, who participate in OPT at a disproportionately high rate, particularly in STEM fields, would be considerable.