US weighs a $100,000 OPT fee: what it means for Indian students
Washington has sent a proposed fee on Optional Practical Training — reportedly as high as $100,000 — to the White House for review. OPT is the bridge from a US degree to a first job for hundreds of thousands of Indian students. What it would mean.
The next front in Washington's campaign against work visas may not be the H-1B at all. It may be the programme that comes before it.
On 20 August 2026 the administration sent a proposed rule on Optional Practical Training — known universally as OPT — to the Office of Management and Budget for review, according to the federal reginfo tracker. Media reports covering the filing suggest it could impose a fee running as high as $100,000. The proposal is now behind the last door before publication, under White House review.
OPT is the mechanism that lets international students on F-1 visas work in the United States after they graduate — twelve months for most, and up to an additional twenty-four for those with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. For a very large share of Indian students, it is the whole point of the American degree: the bridge from a university campus to a first job, and from there to an H-1B and, eventually, the hope of a green card. Cut the bridge, and the calculation behind hundreds of thousands of Indian student journeys changes.
The scale of what is at stake is not small. Indians are among the two largest groups of international students in the United States, and OPT is where their education turns into income. A six-figure fee — whether paid by the graduate or the employer willing to hire them — would price many out of the very first rung.
Nothing is fixed yet. Like the H-1B renewal fee now reaching Indian professionals, the OPT proposal must still be published, opened to comment, and will likely be fought in court. But the target is unmistakable, and it has moved upstream — from the workers America admits to the students it trains.
See also: Indian students in the US fell 6.9%, and the four-year rule, and our 2026 comparison of student-visa rules across the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Related from Visas & Law
H-1B renewals get costlier: the new US fee that hits Indians from September 2026
The $100,000 H-1B fee, one year on: where it stands for Indians
September 2026 US visa bulletin: what Indians should expect from the FY2027 reset
