h1bsponsorshipcost.com estimates the true multi-year cost of sponsoring an H-1B worker — the fee stack, attorney work, prevailing-wage uplift, and the downstream green-card track — from both the employer's and the candidate's point of view. It's free, runs entirely in your browser, and takes no side on whether the program is good policy.
h1bsponsorshipcost.com is published by Red Goggles LLC, an independent operator of free web calculators and reference tools. We are not a law firm, an immigration attorney, a staffing agency, an HR-software vendor, or a government body, and we are not affiliated with USCIS, the Department of Labor, or the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC). We don't file petitions, we don't sell leads, and we don't take your information — the calculator runs on your device and nothing you type is sent to us.
Almost every page online about H-1B cost reprints the USCIS filing-fee schedule and stops there. But filing fees are usually less than 20% of the loaded cost. The rest is attorney work, statutory surcharges, prevailing-wage uplift when the offered salary sits below the OFLC wage for the role, and — if the employer commits to permanent residency — a PERM/green-card track that typically runs $15,000–$25,000 over two to four years. Most employers walk in expecting a sponsorship to cost $5,000–$7,000 and are surprised by a Year-1 number closer to $15,000–$30,000. Showing the whole stack, for both sides of the table, is the entire reason this tool exists.
The estimate is assembled from published, authoritative inputs, applied in the open:
The full method is spelled out on the calculator page under How fees work, Prevailing wage levels, and Lottery mechanics, and explained further in our guides.
The H-1B program is politically charged. We don't advocate for or against it — we stick to the fees, the regulations, and the decision-making math, and we frame the candidate view to inform rather than to patronize workers who are often in visa-dependent positions. Every figure ties to a primary source (USCIS, DOL, OFLC), the site carries a dated "last reviewed" note, and we refresh the numbers on the annual cadence they change on: the USCIS fee schedule, the OFLC prevailing-wage tables (updated each July 1), and the post-lottery selection rate announced after the March draw.
h1bsponsorshipcost.com is free and supported by display advertising. Advertising never mixes with your inputs — see our privacy page for exactly what is and isn't collected.
This site provides an educational estimate, not legal, immigration, tax, or financial advice. Case-specific eligibility, fee applicability in edge cases, and dependency determinations require a licensed immigration attorney. See our full disclaimer.
Questions or corrections? On a topic where the details matter this much, we take accuracy seriously — reach us on the contact page.