- Wall Street H-1B filings are down year-over-year following Trump's visa crackdown.
- While some large visa filers, like Goldman Sachs, are down year over year, others are up.
- Financial firms often use H-1B hires to boost their technical staff, but AI could complicate that.
H-1B visa filings fell at major financial firms like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan last year, while other major firms, like Citi, increased their petitions compared to the same time the previous year.
This is the first data available showing how the financial industry reacted to President Donald Trump's changes to the work visa program, which made new applications more expensive.
The Department of Labor data shows that the financial firms that filed the most certified H-1B applications in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 filed 10% less than they did in the same period the year before. The federal fiscal year's first quarter runs from October through December.
Certified H-1B and similar visa applications are those that the Labor Department has reviewed to ensure that a prospective immigrant worker will be paid similarly to other workers in similar roles, and won't adversely affect employment for those workers.
The named firms either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
H-1B applications fell sharply in the tech industry during the same time period, with all major firms Business Insider analyzed seeing reductions except for Nvidia.
Looking at 20 of the financial firms that are the biggest users of the program in the quarter, the firms filed 25% fewer than they did the previous year.
JPMorgan Chase saw the biggest drop in filings, from 724 certified applications from October through December 2024 to 516 a year later, a nearly 29% decrease. The change in applications dropped it from the biggest financial firm user of the program in the first quarter of last fiscal year to the second biggest user in the same quarter of this fiscal year. The firm's H-1B filings appear to be largely focused on tech roles.
The largest percentage decrease in the quarter came from Goldman Sachs, seeing a more than 60% drop from 256 filings to 101. The firm's remaining filings include a mix of front-office financial roles and technical roles.
While these two financial titans had a decrease in filings, some of their large banking competitors have actually seen their filings rise year over year, with Citi's filings up nearly 20%, Barclays' up nearly two-thirds, and Morgan Stanley's up more than a quarter. Citi and Barclays' filings show a mix of financial and technical workers, while Morgan Stanley's filings do not show the underlying job function.
Another company with a more modest 4% year-over-year increase, Capital One, filed for many data science- and machine-learning-oriented roles, including director-level roles in data engineering and data science, and a machine learning senior lead role.
The figures only reflect Labor Department certifications, not final visa approvals or lottery selections. Multiple filings can correspond to a single worker. And while Q1 numbers offer a preliminary snapshot, annual tallies could also vary based on hiring cycles or other factors.
Trump's administration has made some major changes to the H-1B program, including a $100,000 fee unveiled late last September, social media vetting requirements, and a wage-based lottery system that gives the highest-paid applicants a better chance in the annual H-1B lottery.
The H-1B lottery, which took place last month, is typically when the lion's share of applications are filed. When those filings are released, the impact of Trump's policy will be made clearer. Immigration lawyers previously told Business Insider that constant policy shifts and uncertainty are causing many corporations to curb their sponsorship of work visas.
The dip in filings also comes as fear is rising about generative AI's potential impact on white-collar workforces, especially technical workers, who are often among the main targets of H-1B-sponsored hiring.
