Leeham News and Analysis
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Little impact seen on Boeing by Trump’s new H1B visa policy
By Scott Hamilton
Sept. 23, 2025, © Leeham News: President Trump’s announcement last Friday that there will be a $100,000 fee on new applications for H1B business visas doesn’t appear to have much effect on Boeing.
Boeing has, for years, utilized foreign national engineers from Russia, India, Ukraine, and possibly other countries for work performed domestically. Foreigners are granted entry into the US to work under what’s called an H-1 B visa.
Boeing, tech companies, and other businesses commonly sponsor H1B visas. At Boeing, this has been a sore point for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the union representing engineers and technical employees. SPEEA views each H1B visa engineer as displacing a local engineer or technician.
Under Trump’s Executive Order, which imposes a $100,000 fee, several exemptions appear to apply to Boeing and other companies. According to a US government website, a $100,000 payment must accompany any new H-1B visa petitions submitted after 12:01 am EDT on Sept. 21, 2025.
The relevant exemptions that appear to apply to Boeing are any previously issued H1B visas, or any petitions submitted before 12:01 am EDT on Sept. 21. Nor does the new policy “prevent any holder of a current H1B visa from traveling in and out of the United States.”
Boeing’s H1B visa holders
Boeing has been utilizing foreign nationals in its engineering programs since at least the development of the 787. According to the website Myvisajobs.com, Boeing certified 42 applications in 2022 and 33 in 2021. So far this year, Boeing has applied for 10 people.
The average annual salary was just under $142,000. The average stay in the US by Boeing workers is unknown. However, it is known that once Boeing has employed a worker for two years, they become a member of SPEEA. LNA understands that Boeing rotates H1B workers back to their home country before the two-year period is up and brings in new workers, thereby avoiding the unionization of these workers.
SPEEA declined to comment.
It’s disappointing that Boeing uses H-1Bs at all, since there are
plenty of qualified American engineers who could do that work.
Par for the course, though.
Those US engineers may prefer to work for a different US aerospace firm/institution…e.g. offering better pay, reputation, location, etc.
Vincent.
Last time I was staffing up things, Stress Analysts were in very short supply and we were platooning talent in from Boeing Moscow to cover the shortfall. That doors closed as well as the use of the Ukrainian talent we had access to. It IS better today, but Im not sure we can still get it done with US based talent.
Thanks for that info, PNW.
An article from today on how other countries may/will benefit ftom the new H-1B fees:
“Europe’s work-life balance a key talent draw as Trump revamps H-1B visa”
“Talent hubs in the U.K., Europe, Middle East and Asia are widely expected to be among those that stand to benefit.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/europes-work-life-balance-could-be-key-in-trumps-h-1b-visa-shake-up.html
Here continues the US brain drain…, after a start at the highest level 😉
????
Brain Drain is when your talented people go elsewhere.
Per PNWgeek, there are cases where not enough of the right talent is available.
Other cases where its abused (I believe Boeing got caught pants down some years back and had to cut a number of the H-1s as it was a salary decrease issue)
There should be another step that any US company using this, also has to come up with a plan to get the talent it needs, be it scholarships, bonus to divert to that path of engineering or other ideas that work.