(UNITED STATES) Business groups and policy analysts are pushing to expand the E-3 visa to United Kingdom nationals as a targeted response to the H-1B crisis that has deepened since President Donald Trump’s administration imposed a new $100,000 filing fee on H-1B petitions in September. Advocates say opening the E-3, now limited to Australians, could keep US-UK talent moving and blunt the shock of rising costs that have priced smaller firms and startups out of the United States’ main skilled worker pathway.
The proposal has gathered urgency since a Presidential Proclamation on September 19, 2025, set the new H-1B fee, with the charge effective September 21, 2025, described by legal analysts as “the single most expensive visa application in U.S. history.” Early effects have rippled through tech, healthcare, and universities, where hiring plans have stalled, projects have slipped, and international teams have thinned out as employers recalculate the cost of bringing in specialized workers. A Cleveland-based healthcare tech startup, faced with the new costs, moved two AI research roles to Toronto, a decision that cascaded into the loss of 10 supporting jobs in Cleveland.
“The $100,000 fee is expected to impose higher costs and significantly increase the cost of hiring new foreign talent, potentially pricing out smaller businesses from the H-1B program,”
according to a comprehensive analysis by a leading immigration law firm. The analysis echoed reports from recruitment executives and in-house counsel who say the sudden cost spike, on top of existing compliance burdens, has forced hard choices: canceling offers, offshoring work, or shifting budgets to domestic positions that don’t fully match skill needs.
As the H-1B crisis drags on, the E-3 visa has emerged as a concrete model for relief. The E-3 allows Australian citizens to work in the United States in specialty occupations—jobs that typically require at least a bachelor’s degree—in a category capped at 10,500 visas per year, not counting spouses and children. There is no lottery, and applications can be renewed indefinitely in two-year increments. Spouses of E-3 holders can work without restrictions, a benefit that advocates say eases the family strain that often accompanies work relocations. Total costs are a fraction of H-1B fees; consular charges are about $205.
The E-3 process is also leaner. Employers must secure a Labor Condition Application with the Department of Labor, but in most cases there is no need to file a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before the worker applies for a visa at a U.S. consulate. Applicants show proof of a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a specialty occupation and proceed directly to visa processing, instead of waiting for a lottery selection and prolonged adjudication. For mid-sized firms and startups fighting to recruit quickly, proponents say the E-3’s design provides speed and predictability that the H-1B, even before the new fee, didn’t reliably offer.
Against that backdrop, an expansion to include UK nationals is being pitched as a narrow, immediately useful fix that would shore up US-UK talent pipelines at a moment when they are fraying.
“Expanding the E-3 would be a logical, low-friction solution. It would deliver a practical, people-centered benefit: making workforce mobility as seamless as trade and capital flows”.
In policy briefs circulated to lawmakers and state economic development officials, business coalitions argue that letting British engineers, data scientists, nurses, and academics use an E-3 track would help sectors now pausing hiring after the H-1B fee landed. They also point out that UK professionals are frequently recruited for roles tied to US clients and research partners, but are increasingly stepping back from US placements amid rising costs and uncertainty over status.
The H-1B fee change is only part of the strain. Employers and immigration lawyers describe knock-on effects: projects that require specialized programming languages sitting idle; hospital systems delaying the launch of telehealth platforms; and university labs unable to replace postdoctoral researchers who ended their US stints and returned overseas when their next H-1B application became financially unrealistic. The net result, analysts say, is a monthly decline by thousands in the number of new, highly skilled workers starting in the United States. Indian nationals, who have long dominated H-1B admissions, appear to be among the hardest hit.
Supporters of the E-3 expansion also frame it as a competitive necessity. The United Kingdom, they note, is moving in the opposite direction. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said her government will ease access to the country’s talent routes to capitalise on shifts in global hiring.
“While President Trump announced late last week that it will make it harder to bring talent to the US, we want to make it easier to bring talent to the UK. We are expanding our global talent and high potential individual visa routes, and we’re moving quickly to make those easier to access,”
Reeves said. Officials in London are weighing ways to lower costs for top-tier applicants, including a proposal some have described as “kicking around the idea of cutting costs to zero,” with the goal of attracting prize-winning researchers and graduates of leading universities.
By contrast, the United States’ primary high-skill channel has grown costlier and more unpredictable. Employers face the H-1B lottery, stricter wage rules, detailed compliance checks, and now the $100,000 filing fee for new petitions. Even before the fee change, spouses of many H-1B holders needed separate employment authorization, which can be delayed by backlogs. In this environment, the E-3 visa looks attractive to US employers trying to keep critical roles domestic and to UK candidates weighing whether to accept an offer in Boston or Manchester. At the center of the pitch is the promise of steady US-UK talent circulation that matches how investment and trade already flow between the two economies.
Expanding the E-3 would require Congressional action or a bilateral agreement. During past debates over visa reform, some lawmakers signaled support for country-specific programs that operate outside the H-1B lottery, provided they include labor protections such as prevailing wage requirements. The E-3 already carries those guardrails through the Labor Condition Application, which obliges employers to pay the required wage and attest to working conditions that safeguard US workers. For procedural details on how the existing category works, the State Department provides an overview of eligibility and steps on its E-3 visa category page.
Opponents of expanding country-specific visas typically argue that targeted categories complicate the system and benefit some nationalities over others, an issue that has long surfaced in immigration debates. Advocates counter that the E-3’s size is modest—10,500 principal visas annually—and that a tailored fix is justified as a stopgap while the broader H-1B crisis persists. They also note that Australia’s experience with the E-3 suggests the category can run with low friction: no lottery, steady adjudications, and renewals that allow workers and employers to plan multi-year projects. For families, the ability of E-3 spouses to work without restriction is cited as a practical advantage over options that leave the trailing spouse out of the labor market.
The emerging split between Washington and London on skilled migration policy has sharpened corporate choices. US employers that once scheduled fall H-1B recruiting drives are now trimming international hiring budgets and exploring nearshoring options in Canada and the UK. The Cleveland startup that moved AI roles to Toronto is one of several examples cited by consultants advising firms on contingency plans after September. In parallel, UK recruiters report more inbound interest from professionals in fields such as data science and advanced manufacturing, partly because the UK’s fee structure is familiar and—despite the health surcharge—far less than a US employer would pay to file one new H-1B petition.
For UK candidates, the math is also clearer. The UK’s global talent visa carries a £766 application fee and a £1,035 annual health surcharge, costs that some British officials are now openly considering reducing for top-tier talent. Reeves’s message that the UK is “moving quickly” on those routes comes as British universities and research campuses court international partners, including US firms weighing whether to set up or expand labs in the UK. A streamlined E-3 path to the United States for UK nationals, proponents argue, would keep both channels open and let employers decide role by role whether a hire is best based in New York or Newcastle without being skewed by the H-1B fee shock.
While the E-3 discussion has grown louder, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security have not announced any plan to expand eligibility beyond Australians. Congressional offices have fielded briefings from business groups and think tanks outlining legislative paths, but no bill text has been made public. For now, companies are operating under the rules as they stand: the H-1B remains open to all nationalities but at a much higher price for new filings, while the E-3 remains an option solely for Australians. Immigration counsel caution that even if Congress were to embrace an E-3 expansion, any change could take months to implement.
US policy analysts pressing the case say the gain would be immediate and tangible.
“It would deliver a practical, people-centered benefit: making workforce mobility as seamless as trade and capital flows,”
according to a recent policy brief. In their view, tying a flexible work visa to a close ally would keep more projects and teams in the United States during a period when firms are actively shifting work to other countries. Over time, they argue, an E-3 path for UK nationals could be paired with other targeted steps, such as clarifying spousal work rights or streamlining consular processing, to help stabilize skilled migration without rewriting the entire system.
The stakes are not only corporate. Families are already feeling the squeeze as job offers are rewritten or withdrawn, and as “status uncertainty, forced departures, or family separations” unsettle professionals who thought they had a reliable path to stay. Immigration lawyers say clients are asking whether to pause green card applications, move to a different employer, or leave the United States rather than risk a six-figure H-1B fee that might not lead to a durable role. In sectors like healthcare, where shortages are acute and licensing is complex, hospitals warn that delays in recruiting specialist staff can translate into longer patient wait times and postponed service expansions.
Supporters of the E-3 expansion do not frame it as a cure-all. They describe it as a practical step to keep a vital transatlantic pipeline open while lawmakers and agencies weigh broader changes. They point to the program’s track record—moderate volume, clear requirements, and the ability for spouses to work—as evidence that adding UK nationals would be straightforward to administer. And they caution that the longer the H-1B crisis persists, the more likely employers are to lock in overseas hiring patterns that will be hard to unwind even if US policy later becomes more welcoming.
For now, momentum rests on whether Congress is willing to act and whether the administration chooses to support a narrow fix amid a larger, contentious immigration agenda. No official US government announcement has been made about expanding the E-3 to UK nationals. But the debate has moved from think-tank papers to corporate boardrooms, state economic development offices, and university laboratories trying to decide where to place the next team. With the H-1B crisis accelerating those decisions, backers of the change say the choice is between seeing more high-skill work leave the United States or creating a simple, well-understood bridge to keep US-UK talent in the country.
This Article in a Nutshell
A Presidential Proclamation in September 2025 imposed a $100,000 filing fee on new H-1B petitions, prompting calls to expand the E-3 visa to UK nationals. Advocates argue the E-3—limited to 10,500 annual principals for Australians—offers lower costs, no lottery, predictable renewals, and spouse work authorization, making it a practical, low-friction alternative to keep US-UK talent flows. Supporters seek Congressional or bilateral action as employers pause hiring, offshore roles, and face project delays; no official US policy change has been announced.
