The Department of Homeland Security wants every school that recommends an international student for Optional Practical Training to pay $70,000 first. The proposal, published in the Federal Register on October 8, puts a price on the work authorization that 194,554 F-1 students used to work in 2024, and it names employers as one possible place the cost lands.
What the proposal says
The notice of proposed rulemaking comes from Immigration and Customs Enforcement under DHS Docket No. ICEB-2026-0100. It would add two fees for each F-1 student who works through OPT at a school certified by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program: $70,000 for the initial OPT and $30,000 for any subsequent OPT. DHS lists fighting fraud, protecting U.S. workers and strengthening the integrity of the immigration system as its reasons.
The school pays, and it pays early. Under the proposed text, a Designated School Official cannot enter an OPT recommendation in the SEVIS database until the fee is paid, and USCIS would not grant employment authorization to a student before payment. The fee would apply to recommendations dated on or after the effective date, which DHS proposes to set 60 days after a final rule is published. Students who already hold a recommendation before that date would not be charged.
Comments are due through the regulations.gov docket. The Federal Register lists the close of the comment period as November 9, 2026.
Who ends up paying
The rule does not require students or employers to pay anything directly. It does expect them to feel it. DHS wrote that it “acknowledges that the schools may pass the financial obligation of this proposed fee onto F-1 nonimmigrant students, all students, or employers.” DHS says passing the cost on would further discourage misuse of OPT, including by “employers displacing U.S. workers.”
DHS gives this reason for the fee. It says that “without the fees proposed in this rulemaking, it cannot administer OPT consistent with its focus on protecting American workers and may shut down the program entirely.” It expects schools to become more selective and to recommend only students they judge worth the fee.
The numbers DHS uses
Program growth is the backbone of the case. DHS counts 194,554 F-1 students who were granted employment authorization for pre-completion or post-completion OPT and reported working for an employer in calendar 2024, up from 160,627 in 2023. The proposal also cites site visits that found shell companies, shared addresses and employers claiming far more student workers than they employed. It points to the FICA tax exemption for F-1 students as an incentive for employers, and it says critics have raised that incentive as a reason the program disadvantages U.S. workers.
The economic analysis is where the stakes show. DHS estimates annualized costs of $32 million to $8.2 billion, with a primary estimate of $4.1 billion at a 3 percent discount rate. It estimates annualized transfers, which DHS describes as the movement of the fee payments, at $8.7 billion to $16.9 billion, with a primary estimate of $12.8 billion. DHS says that if schools do not pay some fees because participation falls, the result would be opportunity costs from lost OPT participation.
What it means for the HR leader
Three groups of employers should read the proposal closely.
Campus recruiters. A requisition that assumes a pipeline of international graduates on OPT may lose some of that pipeline, or gain a new cost conversation with the school. DHS says schools “can elect not to pay the fee for a particular F-1 nonimmigrant who is not a strong candidate,” so in our read part of the selection decision moves to the school before a candidate ever reaches an interview.
Employers of STEM OPT students. The STEM extension already carries a Form I-983 training plan and an employer attestation. A $30,000 fee on subsequent OPT adds a price to the second year of an employment relationship that employers have already invested in.
Teams that have budgeted around early-career visa work. DHS offers employers a direct answer to staffing gaps: “they can minimize this impact by recruiting U.S. citizens or candidates with other lawful work authorization to fill the vacancies.” That sentence is the agency’s stated position on employer reliance, and in our read it shows how DHS weighs employer interests.
HRTech has covered other DHS changes to skilled-worker pathways. In August we reported on a proposal to stack a new $103,000 fee on H-1B filings, and in September on how the 60-day cushion for laid-off visa workers is disappearing. This is a separate action: a fee on the student-to-employee stage that comes before either.
What is still open
This is a proposal, not a final rule. DHS says it may change the rule based on the comments it receives, and the effective date depends on when, and in what form, a final rule is published. The agency also states that it is “prioritizing the significant need to address fraud, protect U.S. workers, and strengthen the integrity of the immigration programs.”
The proposal leaves several practical questions to the comment period. DHS says the rule does not propose limits on how schools collect or source the funds, so how a school that passes the fee to employers would collect it is not set out.
Next steps for HR and talent teams
- Count how many current employees and open offers depend on OPT or STEM OPT work authorization, and when each authorization ends.
- Ask the schools you recruit from whether they plan to pass the fee to students or employers, and whether they would still recommend every eligible student.
- Model the cost of a $70,000 or $30,000 charge against the salary band of each early-career role that currently relies on OPT.
- Decide whether to file a comment before the November 9 deadline, and gather the hiring data that supports it.
