The American dream for Indian IT professionals is facing unprecedented challenges as new data reveals a dramatic decline in H-1B visa approvals for the country's top technology firms. According to the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), the landscape for Indian IT in the United States has transformed dramatically over the past decade.
Steep Decline in H-1B Approvals
The top seven Indian IT companies received only 4,573 H-1B petitions approved for initial employment in FY 2025, representing a staggering 70% decline from 2015 levels. The current figures also show a 37% decrease compared to 2024, indicating an accelerating downward trend. This analysis, based on official data from the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub, paints a concerning picture for India's IT export model.
TCS emerges as the lone Indian representative among the top five employers securing approvals for new H-1B workers in the United States. The company also maintains its position as the only Indian IT firm in the top five for continuing-employment approvals, though it faces its own challenges with increasing rejection rates.
TCS Performance Amid Changing Landscape
India's largest IT services company secured 846 approvals for initial employment in FY 2025, significantly lower than the 1,452 approvals received in 2024 and 1,174 in 2023. While TCS maintained a relatively low 2% rejection rate for new petitions, the company experienced a concerning increase in rejection rates for extension applications.
TCS's rejection rate for H-1B extensions jumped to 7% in FY 2025, up from 4% in the previous year, and substantially higher than industry peers. This contrasts sharply with the overall USCIS recorded rejection rate of 1.9% for continuing-employment petitions. Despite these challenges, TCS secured 5,293 approvals for continued employment, highlighting its significant existing workforce in the United States.
Industry-Wide Trends and Expert Analysis
The NFAP policy brief highlights a major shift in the H-1B ecosystem, with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google occupying the top four positions for new H-1B approvals for the first time. Only three India-based companies appear in the list of the top 25 employers for initial H-1B petitions, signaling a fundamental restructuring of the visa program's beneficiaries.
Mansi Singh, Partner at law firm BTG Advaya, explains these trends indicate that companies are focusing more on retaining existing employees legally employed in the US. "The H-1B program has become more of a holding pattern for workers in the green card queue rather than a mechanism to bring new skilled workers to the US," she observed.
Other major Indian IT players showed varying rejection rates for initial employment petitions. While TCS posted one of the lowest rejection rates at 2%, HCL America recorded 6%, LTIMindtree 5%, and Capgemini 4%. For continuing-employment petitions, Infosys, Wipro, and LTIMindtree reported rejection rates between 1% and 2%.
Broader Implications for Software Professionals
Immigration platform Beyond Border notes that approvals for individuals classified as "software engineers" during the labor certification stage have been declining for four consecutive years. This indicates reduced approvals not only in visa adjudication but in underlying labor assessments as well.
According to H1BGrader, labor certifications for the "software engineer" category fell from 40,378 in 2022 to 23,922 through the third quarter of 2025. Camila Façanha, Head of Legal at Beyond Border, commented that "These rejection rates may reflect heightened, longer-term scrutiny of the H-1B program, particularly its use for software engineering and other technology roles."
Despite arguments from some policymakers that foreign-born scientists and engineers constitute "cheap labour," USCIS data tells a different story. In FY 2024, the average annual salary for H-1B professionals in computer-related occupations was $136,000, with a median of $125,000. Additionally, 63% of approved H-1B beneficiaries held a master's degree or higher, confirming that the program continues to attract highly skilled professionals in demand both in the US and globally.
The dramatic shift in H-1B approval patterns signals a new era for Indian IT companies operating in the United States, requiring strategic adaptations to navigate the changing immigration landscape while maintaining their global competitiveness.
