The First Circuit on July 24 refused to let the government reinstate the $100,000 H-1B fee while its appeal plays out. The district court ruling that struck the fee down is now in force: USCIS is barred from collecting it, effective immediately. The appeal continues — and the administration can still ask the Supreme Court to intervene — but a petition that carried a six-figure surcharge last week does not today.
What the court decided
The order, as reported by Bloomberg Law, denied the government's motion to stay the district court's judgment, with the panel finding the administration had not shown it was likely to succeed in defending the fee on appeal. That standard — likelihood of success — is the headline: this is the first appellate read on the June ruling, and it went against the fee.
The procedural history, per Fragomen and the case record:
- September 2025 — a presidential proclamation imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions for workers outside the U.S.
- December 12, 2025 — a coalition of states led by California sued in the District of Massachusetts (State of California, et al. v. Markwayne Mullin, et al., No. 1:25-cv-13829).
- June 8, 2026— the district court vacated the fee as an unlawful tax: the taxing power belongs to Congress, and neither the proclamation nor USCIS's implementation could carry it. The court temporarily stayed its own order, so the fee remained collectible while the government appealed.
- July 24, 2026 — the First Circuit denied a stay pending appeal (No. 26-1699). The pause is lifted; the vacatur is in effect and USCIS cannot collect the fee.
Fragomen expects USCIS to publish updated guidance and revised H-1B filing procedures, though that may take several days — which leaves a short window where the court order and the agency's posted instructions may not yet match.
What attorneys are saying
Practitioner coverage so far is a single written breakdown from the AK Poku Law team, posted as a carousel on @american.immigration.lawyer and cross-posted verbatim to TikTok. The quotes below are from that written post — not a spoken transcript. Its bottom line for employers:
Employers are not required to pay the $100,000 H-1B fee while the appeal is pending.
Just as useful is the post's care about what the order does not decide:
The First Circuit did not decide whether the fee is ultimately lawful. It only decided that the government did not meet the legal standard required to suspend the district court's ruling during the appeal.
And about the road ahead: “The appeal will continue, and the First Circuit will later decide whether the district court correctly ruled that the fee is unlawful” — and “The Trump administration may also ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene before the appeal is resolved.” That framing tracks the court record: a stay ruling, not a merits ruling.
What this changes for employers
The practical swing is enormous. Under the district court's temporary stay, the fee was still collectible; as of July 24 it is not. Hiring plans, budget approvals, and candidacies that were frozen or restructured around a six-figure surcharge can be revisited — with one honest caveat: a Supreme Court stay or a merits reversal could swing it back mid-stream.
- Do not pay the fee on new filings. USCIS is barred from collecting it. Fragomen still recommends consulting counsel before proceeding with petitions that would have been subject to it.
- Read the USCIS guidance when it lands — directly, not through summaries. Until then, expect friction between the order and posted filing instructions.
- Revive the shelved petitions. Candidates abroad whose cases were paused because of the fee are the immediate beneficiaries.
- Track No. 26-1699 and any Supreme Court application. Build the contingency into offer letters and budgets.
- If a fee was already paid, refund posture is a case-specific question for counsel — the reported rulings speak to collection going forward.
Where Lexfill fits
A fee that vanishes overnight un-freezes a queue of petitions all at once — and restarting a shelved case is exactly where stale paperwork bites: a form edition that changed while the case waited, a date that no longer matches the I-94, an employer detail entered three ways across the package. Lexfill takes one client intake and fills the actual USCIS forms on the editions it maintains, reads the supporting documents, and flags what does not line up — so when the queue moves again, the packages that go out are complete, consistent, and current.
The bottom line
The $100,000 H-1B fee is blocked, on the strength of a panel that saw the government as unlikely to win. That is not the end of the case, but it is the operative reality for every petition filed today. The firms that come out of this week well are the ones that tell clients where they stand before being asked — and have the revived filings ready before the next court order moves the line again.