Will Florida Freeze Fresh H-1B Hiring At Public Varsities For A Year?

After the premium processing fee linked to H-1B visa was increased to $2,965, Florida is likely to implement a a one year halt in hiring new staff on H-1B visa across public universities.

This proposed rule supported by Governor Ron DeSantis is intended at protecting US citizen jobs and slash the reliance on foreign workers, Politico reported.

Earlier, DeSantis, who has publicly criticised programmes like H-1B Visa dubbed it as a "total scam", arguing that it replaces American graduates with cheaper foreign workers.

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Meanwhile, Florida’s Board of Governors are expected to take up  H-1B Visa freeze during their upcoming meeting on January 29, 2026.

If the proposed rule receives green light, public universities would be barred from hiring workers on H-1B visas until 2027. Reportedly, the draft policy has already been circulated among board members.

What Led To A Proposed H-1B Visa Freeze In Florida?  

In mid-2023, Governor DeSantis had directed Florida’s public universities and state agencies to slash their use of H-1B and other employment visas.

Under that directive, universities were told to justify any foreign hiring as “essential” and to demonstrate that no qualified American worker was available before moving ahead with visa sponsorship.

After that order, several state universities paused or sharply reduced new H-1B filings, especially for teaching and research roles. This happened even though there was no formal, system-wide ban in place.

The new proposal before the Board of Governors would turn those discretionary curbs into a uniform, time-bound rule, applying across all public campuses.

What Does This H-1B Proposal Entail?

Florida’s public varsities would be not allowed to make fresh recruitments of people holding H-1B Visa for a year, as per the draft policy seen by Politico.

Key Takeaways 

• The freeze would impact recruitment cycles for the fall 2026 academic semester.
• However, existing H-1B visa holders would remain unaffected as this rule only applies to fresh H-1B faculty, researchers, or professional staff during the freeze. 
• If approved, the measure would rank among the strongest state-level limits on H-1B hiring in public higher education. Presently, Florida’s public university system employees close to 400 workers on H-1B visas.
• In the previous year, new rules were introduced for the H-1B programme, leading to a spike in application fees to $100,000 as against the earlier limit of $2,000 to $5,000.