H-1B applications from Indian IT firms have declined sharply over the past two years, according to India’s technology industry body and multiple visa filing records. The trend predates the US Department of Labour’s suspension of Cognizant’s green card filings on 8 September, announced amid an alleged H-1B fraud investigation.
Nasscom, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, said in a statement on 25 August that H-1B employee numbers at Indian technology companies had “reduced significantly” over the past five years, as firms expanded local hiring in the US. Separate filing data reported in the same period show the decline accelerating sharply through 2025 and into 2026, independent of the Cognizant case.
H-1B Applications From Indian IT Firms: What the Data Shows
Four separate, differently sourced figures on H-1B applications from Indian IT firms point in the same direction, covering different measures and time periods.
| Measure | Earlier period | Later period | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H-1B applications, 18 Indian IT firms | 36,453 (2024) | 8,160 (2025) | −77.6% | Nasscom, via Business Standard |
| Industry-wide H-1B registrations | 343,981 (FY26) | 211,600 (FY27) | −38.5% | Business Standard |
| H-1B approvals, six major Indian IT firms | 18,469 (FY25) | 11,041 (as of 31 March 2026) | −40% | Moneycontrol, via PeopleMatters |
| Initial consular H-1B petitions, Indian firms | Year before | Sept 2025–May 2026 | −91.2% | m9.news, Great Andhra |
H-1B applications from Indian IT firms did not fall uniformly across companies: TCS’s approvals fell to 2,885, described as the steepest decline of the group, while Infosys rose to 3,195, the only major firm reported to register year-on-year growth. In the separate consular-petition data, Infosys’s filings fell from 8,886 to 759, and TCS’s from 5,955 to 284, over the same nine-month window.
Cognizant’s own PERM filings tell a similar story over a longer run: the company filed 10,189 labour certification applications in 2018 against 3,436 in 2025, a 66% decline over seven years, according to Business Standard’s analysis of Labour Department records, tracking the same downward path visible in the H-1B applications from Indian IT firms figures above.
It is also important to recognise that, over the past five years, the number of H-1B employees of Indian technology companies operating has reduced significantly, as companies have steadily expanded local hiring.
Nasscom statement, 25 August 2026
Nasscom’s statement also cited $1.1 billion spent over five years on STEM partnerships with more than 130 US universities and colleges, reaching 2.9 million students and upskilling more than 255,000 employees, framing the decline in H-1B use as a function of that expanded local hiring rather than visa unavailability.
This week: Cognizant’s PERM suspension
On 8 September, the Department of Labour’s Office of Inspector General suspended Cognizant’s Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) filings, the first formal step in employer-sponsored green card applications, as part of a White House Fraud Task Force investigation into alleged fraud in the H-1B and PERM programmes used for H-1B applications from Indian IT firms and other employers. Cloudera was suspended in the same action.
The suspension is the latest step in a wider Department of Labour investigation opened on 9 July, when D’Esposito said his office had “already started to issue dozens of subpoenas” and would “track down every lead,” describing it as one of the most aggressive investigations into employment-based visa fraud the department has undertaken. The task force’s stated scope covers alleged wage kickback arrangements and worker exploitation across the visa system broadly, layered on top of the wider slowdown in H-1B applications from Indian IT firms; no specific allegations against Cognizant beyond the PERM suspension have been made public.
Cloudera, a separate US data-software company, had its PERM filings suspended the same day under the same authority; D’Esposito said the two cases were being pursued together, tracking “facts, frauds and finances.” Cloudera’s PERM filings had already been suspended once before, for 180 days from April 2026, according to immigration-law trackers, making September’s action at least its second such suspension this year.
Threats to American workers will not be tolerated.
Anthony D’Esposito, US Department of Labour Inspector General, 8 September 2026
Cognizant employees with existing H-1B visas or already-filed PERM applications are not affected by the suspension, though the case adds to mounting pressure on H-1B applications from Indian IT firms generally. New employer-sponsored green card filings from the company are frozen until the investigation concludes. The current employment-based green card backlog for Indian nationals stands at close to one million people, according to Newsweek’s reporting on the case.
Congressional scrutiny predates the suspension
Congressional scrutiny of H-1B applications from Indian IT firms, and of Cognizant specifically, began nearly a year earlier. Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin wrote to the company on 24 September 2025, noting that Cognizant had been approved to hire 2,493 H-1B employees in fiscal year 2025, making it the seventh-largest H-1B employer in the country, and citing unemployment data showing computer science graduates faced 6.1% unemployment and computer engineering graduates 7.5%, against a general rate of 4.3%.
“We find it hard to believe that Cognizant cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions,” the senators wrote, giving the company until 10 October 2025 to answer nine questions about its hiring and recruitment practices. Cognizant’s response, if any, has not been made public.
The senators’ letter cited a federal jury’s prior finding against the company: in 2024, a jury ruled that Cognizant had discriminated against non-Indian and non-South Asian employees in a case dating to a 2017 lawsuit brought by US-born former staff, awarding $8.4 million in an initial phase; a separate class-wide damages phase remains pending.
The suspension coincides with the open comment period on the proposed $103,265 H-1B fee, which Nasscom’s own 25 August statement estimated would raise $8.8 billion annually from roughly 85,000 cap-subject petitions a year covering H-1B applications from Indian IT firms and other employers, and closes 24 September. It follows an earlier White House review of H-1B petition scrutiny reported earlier this year, and a separate case in which a federal judge froze green card processing across 75 countries, a ruling later narrowed.
What remains open
The legal footing differs by programme. PERM suspensions like this one are authorised under federal regulation (20 CFR 656.31) to protect an active fraud investigation and carry no fixed time limit; filing false PERM information is a federal offence carrying up to five years in prison.
The H-1B side of the action rests on less settled ground: US immigration rules do not generally allow processing to be halted before an investigation, determination and hearing are complete, and it is not publicly known whether that process has run its course for Cognizant. Immigration lawyers tracking comparable cases say PERM suspensions have historically lasted 12 to 20 months, and note that even already-approved green card petitions can later be reopened for review, a risk that adds further uncertainty to H-1B applications from Indian IT firms already navigating the fee increase and fraud inquiry.
The Cognizant and Cloudera investigations into H-1B applications from Indian IT firms are ongoing, with the Department of Labour indicating other companies could face similar review. The $103,265 fee proposal remains open for public comment until 24 September. Nasscom has said it “remains actively engaged with all key stakeholders” on the fee proposal but has not published a response specific to the Cognizant suspension. Whether H-1B applications from Indian IT firms recover once the review concludes remains unclear.
