TCS Slashes H-1B Visa Dependency Amid Senate Scrutiny

India's IT giant Tata Consultancy Services is making a dramatic pivot away from H-1B visas, signaling a major shift in how global tech companies staff their US operations.

CEO K Krithivasan told reporters this week that TCS will not be hiring new H-1B visa applicants in the near future, instead focusing on expanding its local workforce in the United States and other key markets.

"We have enough people on H-1 already in the US. I don't think we would be looking for adding to that count anytime now," Krithivasan said during a recent interview. The statement marks a striking departure from TCS's historical hiring model.

The company is currently the largest employer of H-1B holders in the US, with 98,259 hires between 2009 and 2025. In fiscal year 2025 alone, TCS received approval to hire 5,505 H-1B applicants, ranking ahead of tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google.

Local Hiring Now Exceeds 50%

The shift is already showing results. By January 2025, more than half of TCS workers in the US were locally hired, according to Krithivasan. That's a dramatic change for a company that built its US presence largely through visa-dependent staffing.

"Our original plan was always to send people on H-1 with the intention of bringing them back and rotating them," Krithivasan explained. "We will decide whom to renew at the appropriate time. We are looking to increase our local participation."

The company already operates with high percentages of local associates in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. Now it's replicating that model in the US and Europe.

Milind Lakkad, TCS Chief HR Officer, emphasized the company's global operating model: "We have been hiring people across all locations. This is not the one which is at the top of my mind because we have had a global operating model, global workforce."

Why the Strategic Pivot?

Several factors are driving TCS's shift away from H-1B dependence:

New AI-based projects require closer collaboration with clients, making local hires more critical. "It is going to require a very diverse skill set, compared to pure engineering or technology skills alone," Krithivasan said. "Taking all this into account, we will continue to expand our local workforce in all geographies, particularly in the US and Europe."

Cost pressures are mounting. President Donald Trump recently signed a proclamation raising the H-1B visa fee to a steep 100,000 dollars, up from the current 2,000 to 5,000 dollar range. The new fee structure will impact fiscal year 2027 onwards.

For a company that received 5,505 H-1B approvals in FY2025, the math becomes brutal. At 100,000 dollars per visa, that's over 550 million dollars in visa fees alone. Local hiring becomes significantly more attractive from a pure cost perspective.

Regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. The Trump administration has characterized the H-1B program as "very, very bad" for American workers, creating political pressure on companies perceived as displacing US employees.

Senate Raises Tough Questions

That scrutiny came to a head when US Senators Charles Grassley and Richard Durbin sent TCS a letter in late September posing nine questions about the company's hiring practices.

The Senate Judiciary Committee leaders noted that TCS announced plans to lay off over 12,000 employees worldwide, including American staff, while simultaneously filing thousands of H-1B visa petitions.

"At the same time you have been laying off American employees, you have been filing H-1B visa petitions for thousands of foreign workers," the letter stated. The company laid off nearly five dozen employees in its Jacksonville office alone.

The Senators asked pointed questions:

Has TCS displaced any American employees with H-1B employees?

Does the company hide H-1B recruitment ads by listing them separately from general hiring ads?

Are H-1B hires provided the same salary and benefits as American workers with the same qualifications?

How many H-1B workers are outsourced to other companies versus directly employed by TCS?

"With all of the homegrown American talent relegated to the sidelines, we find it hard to believe that TCS cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions," the letter concluded.

TCS was asked to respond with data by October 10, 2025.

Industry-Wide Implications

Industry experts believe TCS's announcement signals a broader shift in visa hiring strategy across the tech sector.

M. Dinesh, a consultancy manager in Hyderabad, told reporters: "With TCS CEO stating openly that they would not look at hiring new H-1B holders, it is just a matter of time before other major corporations like Amazon, Cognizant, Microsoft follow suit."

He predicted companies will shift toward L-1 visas, which allow intra-company transfers of employees from foreign branches to US-based offices, instead of paying 100,000 dollars per H-1B applicant.

The data supports this trend. India's top IT firms, including TCS, have cut H-1B applications by 46% in recent years. In the first six months of 2025, TCS was the only Indian company in the top-10 H-1B visa recipients.

Amazon now tops the list with 10,044 visas, followed by Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Google, and JPMorgan Chase. The dominance of US tech giants represents a dramatic shift from a decade ago when Indian IT firms dominated H-1B visa recipients.

Hiring Plans Despite Headcount Reductions

Despite the workforce reductions, TCS maintains aggressive hiring plans for fresh graduates. The company is on track to hire 40,000 trainees in 2025 and plans to onboard even more in 2026.

"It is a very positive trend, and I am planning to do more than 40,000 next year," Lakkad told reporters.

However, the company reported a net reduction of 5,370 employees in the October to December 2024 quarter, bringing total workforce down to 607,354 from 612,724. The headcount fell further by 19,755 in the most recent quarter.

This creates an apparent contradiction: aggressive campus hiring alongside significant workforce reductions. The explanation lies in TCS's workforce transformation strategy, moving from experienced H-1B professionals to locally hired junior talent and fresh graduates.

The shift represents a fundamental reimagining of TCS's staffing model, one that could reshape how global IT services companies operate in the US market.

Looking for a new job? Try Metaintro for verified tech and IT roles.