New H-1B Bill: S.2928 Proposals and What’s Already Law

The new H-1B bill is the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2025, introduced in the Senate as S.2928 on September 29, 2025, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. As of mid-2026 it has not moved out of committee, and none of its provisions are law. That matters because several other H-1B changes did take effect over the same window through presidential proclamation and agency rulemaking, and those are often mistaken for the bill itself.¹

So there are really two questions to separate: what would the bill do if Congress passes it, and what already applies to H-1B petitions right now regardless of the bill’s fate.

What S.2928 Would Change for H-1B

The bill would codify and expand many of the administrative reforms already underway. Its main H-1B provisions:

Raise prevailing wage requirements to at least the median (Level II) wage for the occupation and area.
Strengthen the requirement that employers recruit U.S. workers before sponsoring an H-1B applicant.
Require employers to give foreign workers informational brochures explaining their rights, wage protections, and how to report violations.
Give employees and beneficiaries the right to receive copies of petitions and communications the employer filed with federal agencies, within 21 days of a request.

The median-wage floor is the provision with the sharpest bite. The H-1B program currently allows employers to pay at Level I, which is set at the 17th percentile of wages for the occupation. Under the bill, no H-1B worker could be paid below the 50th percentile. Entry-level sponsorship at Level I would no longer exist.

What S.2928 Would Change for L-1

The bill is named for both H-1B and L-1, and the L-1 provisions may matter more to multinational employers than the H-1B side. The L-1 visa lets multinational companies transfer employees from foreign offices to the United States. Under the proposed legislation:

L-1 workers employed in the U.S. for more than one year would need to be paid at least the prevailing median wage, matching the Level II standard proposed for H-1B.
Employers would be restricted from placing L-1 workers at third-party client sites for more than one year without a waiver.
The definition of “specialized knowledge” for L-1B eligibility would narrow to require advanced and proprietary expertise not readily available in the U.S. labor market. General familiarity with a company’s internal processes would no longer qualify.

The specialized-knowledge tightening is a direct response to the way L-1B has been used to move workers with routine familiarity of proprietary systems, and it would foreclose that use.

Whistleblower and Transparency Provisions

The bill includes whistleblower protections for employees who report employer violations, along with the transparency requirements noted above: brochures, and a 21-day window for workers to obtain copies of their own petition filings. These provisions are designed to close the information gap that has historically allowed some employers to keep sponsored workers unaware of what was filed on their behalf. None of this is in force yet, though the Department of Labor already treats retaliation against workers who raise compliance concerns as a priority investigation trigger under its enforcement work.²

What Is Not in the Bill But Is Already Law

Several of the H-1B changes generating the most attention did not come from S.2928. They came from the executive branch and are already in effect. Confusing the two leads to bad planning, so here is the boundary.

The $100,000 Petition Fee

A presidential proclamation signed on September 19, 2025, restricts entry for H-1B specialty occupation workers unless the petition is accompanied by a $100,000 payment. The fee took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT on September 21, 2025, and applies to every new H-1B petition filed after that moment, including petitions for the FY2027 lottery cycle.³

It is a one-time payment on new petitions only. It does not apply to H-1B renewals, extensions, or petitions filed before September 21, 2025. Current H-1B holders can continue to travel in and out of the country without any additional payment.⁴

The proclamation includes a national interest exception: the Secretary of Homeland Security can waive the fee for an individual worker, all workers at a particular company, or an entire industry if hiring those workers is determined to serve the national interest and not threaten the security or welfare of the United States. The proclamation expires 12 months after its effective date unless extended.³

The Weighted Lottery

The traditional H-1B lottery gave every registration an equal shot when demand exceeded the annual cap of 65,000 regular visas plus 20,000 for holders of advanced U.S. degrees. That ended with a DHS final rule effective February 27, 2026, which replaces random selection with a wage-weighted process starting with the FY2027 cap season.⁵

Each registration is assigned to one of four Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics wage levels based on the salary offered relative to the occupation and geographic area. Each registration is entered into the selection pool multiple times based on that level:

Level IV (67th percentile): entered 4 times
Level III (50th percentile): entered 3 times
Level II: entered 2 times
Level I: entered 1 time

A Level IV registration is effectively four times as likely to be selected as a Level I registration.⁶ The 20,000-visa allocation for workers with a U.S. master’s degree or higher still exists.

Proposed Wage Floor Increase

Separately from the bill, the Department of Labor published a proposed rule in March 2026 that would raise the prevailing wage floors used across the H-1B program. Level I (entry-level) would move from the 17th percentile to the 34th percentile, raising the national average for Level I from roughly $73,000 to about $98,000 for affected occupations.⁷ Public comments were open through May 26, 2026. This is a proposed rule, not final. It reaches a similar result to the bill’s median-wage requirement but through agency rulemaking rather than legislation.

Tighter Specialty Occupation Definition

A DHS final rule published in December 2024 clarified that a position qualifies as a specialty occupation only if the required degree is directly related to the duties. A general degree without further specialization is not enough. A position can accept a range of qualifying fields, but each must be directly related to the work.⁸ USCIS is instructed to evaluate the beneficiary’s actual course of study rather than just the degree title, which matters for applicants whose transcripts show concentrated coursework in a relevant field even if the diploma reads more generally.

Project Firewall

The Department of Labor launched Project Firewall in September 2025 to target H-1B program abuse. It prioritizes investigations where employers may be displacing U.S. workers, failing to recruit American candidates in good faith, giving preference to H-1B workers over qualified domestic applicants, or retaliating against workers who raise compliance concerns.² It operates under existing statutory authority, so it did not need Congress.

Status at a Glance

H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act (S.2928): introduced September 29, 2025; referred to Senate Judiciary Committee; not enacted.¹
$100,000 petition fee: in effect since September 21, 2025; expires after 12 months unless extended.³
Weighted lottery selection: final rule effective February 27, 2026; applies to FY2027 cap season and beyond.⁵
Specialty occupation tightening: final rule from December 2024, in effect.⁸
Prevailing wage floor increase: proposed rule only; comment period closed May 26, 2026; not yet final.⁷
Project Firewall: active since September 2025.²

Why the Distinction Matters

If S.2928 stalls, its H-1B wage floor will not become law. But an agency rule pointing in the same direction may become final anyway. And regardless of what happens on Capitol Hill, the fee, the weighted lottery, and the tighter specialty occupation standard are already the baseline. Employers waiting on Congress to see whether to change their sponsorship strategy have already missed several changes that were not going to come from Congress. Applicants sizing up their chances need to plan around the weighted lottery and the $100,000 fee now, and treat the bill’s provisions as a possible additional layer rather than the main event.

1
Congress.gov. S.2928 – 119th Congress – H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2025
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Protecting America’s Highly Skilled Workforce with Project Firewall
3
The White House. Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B FAQ
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Specialty Occupations
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-1B Cap Season
7
U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy. DOL Proposes Rule to Increase Wage Levels for H-1B Visa, PERM Labor Visas
8
Federal Register. Modernizing H-1B Requirements, Providing Flexibility in the F-1 Program, and Program Improvements