US Visa Changes for Indian Students: What Stayed and What Changed (October 2026)
As of 21 October 2026, the two headline scares, a four-year cap on F-1 stays and a $100,000 H-1B fee, are both blocked by US federal courts. What has actually changed for Indian applicants is the visa interview and the H-1B lottery. The next fight is over OPT, where a $70,000 fee has been proposed but not finalised.
Every few weeks a new number goes viral in Indian applicant groups. $100,000. $70,000. Four years. 62% fewer visas.
What almost nobody says is which of these are in force, which a court has stopped, and which are still proposals open for public comment. That distinction is the whole story of the US visa changes for Indian students this year.
This post sorts the rules into three piles: in force, blocked, proposed. If you are weighing an MBA in the USA or a US master’s for 2027, this is the version you can plan against.
The visa picture is one input. Your goals, budget and post-MBA industry are the others. This three-minute tool weighs them together.
The pathway most Indian applicants plan around
Almost every Indian applicant to a US programme is planning the same four-step route, whether they say so or not. Each step has its own rule, and each rule has its own status right now.
Study. Admitted for “duration of status”, meaning no fixed end date on your I-94.
12 months of work after the degree. Form I-765, $520 filing fee today.
24 extra months for STEM degrees with an E-Verify employer.
85,000 a year. Employer files. Selection is now weighted by wage level.
One detail matters more for MBA applicants than for MS applicants. A standard MBA is not a STEM degree, so it gets the 12-month OPT only. A STEM-designated MBA or a STEM master’s gets the extra 24 months. That difference is about to matter more, for reasons covered below.
US visa changes for Indian students that the courts blocked
Two rules dominated the headlines this year. Neither is in effect today.
F-1 visa rules 2026: duration of status is still in force
On 17 July 2026, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule to end “duration of status” for F-1 students. Under the rule, students would get a fixed admit-until date on their I-94, capped at four years, and the post-study grace period would shrink from 60 days to 30. Staying longer would need a Form I-539 extension filed with USCIS.
It was due to take effect on 15 September 2026. On 14 September, a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a nationwide preliminary injunction stopping it, one day before the start date.
So today: you are admitted for duration of status, your grace period is 60 days, and no four-year clock has started. The litigation continues, and the government can appeal, so treat this as paused rather than dead.
The $100,000 H-1B fee is not being collected
A presidential proclamation on 19 September 2025 required a $100,000 payment for H-1B workers entering the US from abroad. Three court actions have since stopped it. A Massachusetts court vacated the implementing policies on 8 June 2026, calling the payment an unlawful tax. The First Circuit refused to reinstate it on 24 July. A California court vacated it again on 30 September, along with an 18 September 2026 proclamation that had extended it to September 2027.
The government appealed to the Ninth Circuit on 9 October. Until an appeals court rules otherwise, no employer is paying this fee.
One point that got lost in the panic last year: even when the fee was live, it applied to people entering from abroad. A student already in the US on F-1 or OPT, whose employer files a change of status, was outside its scope.
| Question | Today (21 Oct 2026) | If the blocked rules return |
|---|---|---|
| Can I stay as long as my programme runs? | Yes. Duration of status. | Fixed date, max 4 years, 30-day grace |
| Does my employer pay $100,000 to sponsor me? | No. Blocked by two courts. | Only for entry from abroad |
| Is my OPT the same as before? | Yes. 12 months + 24 STEM. | Unchanged (fee is a separate proposal) |
What actually changed at the visa interview
Of all the US visa changes for Indian students, these are the ones already in force, and the ones most families underestimate.
Since 18 June 2025, the State Department reviews the online presence of every F, M and J visa applicant and instructs them to set social media profiles to public. The DS-160 asks for every handle used in the last five years. An omitted account, even a dormant one, is treated as a misrepresentation risk and can trigger a 221(g) hold.
From 1 October 2025, the interview-waiver categories were narrowed. F-1 is not among them. Plan on an in-person interview at an Indian consulate, including for renewals.
The practical effect was visible in the numbers. New student-visa interviews were paused worldwide from 27 May 2025 while the vetting was built out, then restarted into a backlog. That pause is a large part of why the summer 2025 issuance figures look the way they do.
H-1B lottery changes: why a US master’s now matters more
The H-1B lottery is no longer a coin toss. Since 27 February 2026, selection is weighted by the wage level of the job offer, measured against Department of Labor prevailing-wage data.
A Level I offer gets one entry in the pool. Level II gets two. Level III gets three. Level IV gets four. Each person is counted once no matter how many employers register them, and if several employers do, the lowest wage level applies.
The first results, for FY2027, show what that did:
USCIS confirmed the cap was reached on 17 July 2026, with no second lottery. These are preliminary figures the agency shared in May; the full data set is still to come.
Read that as an MBA applicant. The 20,000 slots reserved for US advanced-degree holders already gave you an edge. Now a post-MBA offer in consulting, finance or product, which usually clears Level II or higher, gives you two to four entries instead of one. The people squeezed hardest are entry-level hires at Level I, which is where many MS graduates and staffing-firm placements historically sat.
When you compare offers on OPT, ask HR which OEWS wage level they will file at before you sign. Two offers with similar salaries can land at different levels depending on the city and job code, and that difference now changes your lottery odds by a factor of two or more.
The OPT fee proposal and what it could mean for your school choice
This is the live risk. Everything above is either settled or paused. This one is open.
$70,000 for first OPT, $30,000 for STEM OPT
On 8 October 2026, DHS published a proposed rule that would charge the university $70,000 before a Designated School Official recommends a student for OPT for the first time, and $30,000 for any subsequent OPT, which includes the 24-month STEM extension. The school pays, but DHS says schools may pass the cost on to students or employers.
Public comments close on 9 November 2026. If finalised, the fee would start 60 days after the final rule is published, and it would apply only to recommendations dated on or after that day. Students already recommended or approved would not be charged for that period.
DHS’s stated reason is fraud: it cites around 4,000 students who used shell companies to fake OPT employment. It also notes the scale of the programme. In 2024, 194,554 students worked on OPT and 165,524 were on STEM OPT, against an annual H-1B cap of 85,000.
For an applicant, the question is not whether you can afford $70,000. It is whether your target school will keep recommending OPT, and on what terms. DHS itself assumes some institutions “may be less likely to pay” for a single year of non-STEM OPT. That makes where you apply a visa decision as much as a ranking decision.
The separate $103,265 H-1B petition fee
Published 25 August 2026 as an ordinary USCIS fee rule, this is the administration’s second attempt at a six-figure H-1B charge, this time through the rulemaking route the courts said the proclamation skipped. It would apply to every cap-subject petition, including change of status from F-1 or OPT and the 20,000 master’s-cap slots. Cap-exempt employers such as universities and non-profit research bodies would be excluded.
Comments closed on 24 September. It is not final. It cannot affect FY2027 selections and would first apply, at the earliest, to the spring 2027 lottery. If it goes through, it is the employer’s bill, and it will shape which employers sponsor.
Which schools you can realistically target decides how exposed you are to the OPT proposal. A profile evaluation gives you that list before you commit to a strategy.
Indian students in the US: the numbers behind the headlines
India remains the largest source of international students in the US, and a US MBA for Indian students is still the most common goal in that group. The decline is in new arrivals, not in the existing population.
Two readings of the 62% figure are both true. Demand fell because of policy uncertainty. Supply also fell because interviews were paused for a month and restarted with slower vetting. If you are applying for 2027, the second factor is the one you can plan for: book the interview early.
The fee numbers also change the financing conversation. A $70,000 OPT charge, if passed through, is close to a full year of tuition at many programmes. Build it into any MBA financing plan as a scenario, not a certainty.
How this lands on a 2027-intake applicant
Here is the same information laid along the timeline of someone applying now for a fall 2027 start.
Now to March 2027: applications. Nothing in the visa rules changes your admission odds. Programme length is irrelevant to the four-year cap; every MBA and master’s fits inside it even if the blocked rule returns.
April to July 2027: visa interview. In person, in India. Social profiles public, five years of handles listed, nothing omitted. Summer slots have been the bottleneck two years running, so book the moment your I-20 arrives.
August 2027: arrival. You enter on duration of status unless the injunction is lifted. If the fixed-date rule ever takes effect, it is re-entry after foreign travel that moves an existing student onto an admit-until date, so travel plans in your first year deserve a second look.
2028 to 2029: OPT. This is where the open risk sits. Before you deposit, ask the international office of every school on your shortlist one question: if the OPT fee is finalised, will you still recommend students, and who pays? The answer varies by school and is worth more than any ranking gap. The MBA fit finder is a reasonable place to build that shortlist.
March 2029 or 2030: the H-1B lottery. Wage-weighted. Your US master’s gives you the 20,000-slot exemption; a Level II or higher offer gives you multiple entries. If the $103,265 petition fee is final by then, expect fewer sponsoring employers and more weight on the ones who already sponsor at scale. This is the stage where MBA admissions consulting earns its keep two years early: the school you pick now is the employer pool you recruit from later.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. DHS finalised the rule on 17 July 2026 with a 15 September start date, but a federal court in Massachusetts issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on 14 September. F-1 students continue to be admitted for duration of status with a 60-day grace period while the litigation continues.
No. The fee was vacated by a Massachusetts court on 8 June 2026 and again by a California court on 30 September 2026, and the appeals court declined to reinstate it. Employers are filing H-1B petitions without it. Even while it ran, it did not apply to change-of-status petitions for students already in the US.
No. It is a proposed rule published on 8 October 2026, open for public comment until 9 November 2026. If finalised, universities would pay $70,000 for a student’s first OPT and $30,000 for later OPT including the STEM extension, starting 60 days after the final rule, for recommendations made on or after that date.
Since 27 February 2026 the lottery is weighted by wage level: one entry at Level I, up to four at Level IV. In the first run, 71.5% of selected beneficiaries held a US advanced degree. MBA graduates with Level II or higher offers now have materially better odds than entry-level applicants.
It depends on which school and which post-MBA role. The lottery changes favour US advanced-degree holders in higher-wage roles, which describes most top-programme MBA outcomes. The open risk is the OPT fee proposal. Applicants should pick schools that have said how they will handle it, and should treat the visa interview as a project in its own right.
What to do next
The headline numbers are mostly not in force. The quiet US visa changes for Indian students are. If you take one thing from this post, take the sorting habit: before reacting to any US visa news, ask whether it is in force, blocked, or proposed.
Then do the three things that are in your control. Build a school list that includes each school’s stance on OPT. Book the visa interview early. And target roles that clear Level II, because that is now the lottery.
A profile evaluation gives you a realistic read on which US programmes you can target, which is the first input to every decision above.
Sources: USCIS (H-1B weighted selection rule, 23 Dec 2025; proposed H-1B fee, 24 Aug 2026); Federal Register documents 2026-14439, 2026-17324 and 2026-20660; Bloomberg Law (12 Oct 2026); Forbes (1 and 8 Oct 2026); SHRM (22 Jul 2026); Business Standard (5 Aug 2026 and 3 Apr 2026). Status checked 21 October 2026. Crackverbal has guided Indian applicants to global programmes since . This article is a summary of public documents, not legal advice.
Shreekala Kurup is the Co-Founder and COO of Crackverbal, and the driving force behind its MBA and Masters admissions consulting practice. Before co-founding Crackverbal, she spent seven years at Hewlett-Packard in client-facing operations roles, bringing with her a rigor for process and strategy that still shows in how she works with applicants today. A fellow of the ISB Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Entrepreneurs program, she has guided thousands of professionals into top global business schools, helping them find and articulate the story that was already there. Her particular skill is turning a complicated, anxious applicant into someone who sounds exactly like themselves on paper — which, as anyone who has written an MBA essay will tell you, is harder than it sounds.
Your MBA journey starts with
one right call.
30-minute profile evaluation. We'll tell you which schools match your profile and your odds — with no hedging.
TL;DR Strengthening your MBA profile is not about doing everything on this list. It is about choosing activities that break...
01 · All 100 colleges Top 100 MBA Colleges in India With Fees and Average Salaries Search by name or...
01 · The fifty schools Fifty Indian B-Schools That Accept the GMAT Filter by who can apply with a GMAT...