Two years ago Tata Consultancy Services filed 1,804 applications to sponsor its workers for permanent residency in the United States. In the year just ended it filed two. On 8 October Washington stopped taking any.
The suspension, reported by Mint and The Economic Times, shuts eight technology companies out of the Labor Department’s Permanent Labor Certification programme: Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Capgemini, Infosys, Wipro, TCS and HCLTech. New applications will not be accepted and pending ones will not be processed.
It is not the H-1B visa. That is the permit a worker is employed on. The certification is the step by which an employer asks for the worker to stay for good, and India’s foreign ministry said existing H-1B visas are not affected.
The Indian companies were small users of the programme, and three of the four filed fewer in their latest year on record than before. Infosys filed 87 applications in the 2024 financial year and none since. HCL America filed 96, then 323, then 59. Wipro went the other way, from 257 to 523. Microsoft applied for 6,878 positions, Apple for 2,811 and Intel for 2,735, according to Perm Tracker, a dashboard of Labor Department data cited by Business Standard.
Where it lands
What a rule like this can reach is not the contract signed in Bengaluru but the payroll abroad. TCS spent ₹87,305 crore in foreign currency in the year to March 2026, which is 40.6% of the ₹2,14,844 crore it earned abroad, its annual report shows. Wipro spent 44.4% and HCLTech 27.6%. Infosys’s report gives no single figure.
Behind that sits how much of each company is exports at all: 94.1% of revenue at TCS, 97.4% at Infosys, 97.5% at Wipro and 91.5% at HCLTech. And behind the companies sits the country’s account. India earned $35.5 billion from services exports in August, 13.7% more than a year earlier, RBI data show.
| Company | Applications in the last three years, as reported | Exports, share of revenue | Spent abroad, share of earnings abroad |
|---|---|---|---|
| TCS | 1,804, then 513, then 2 | 94.1% | 40.6% |
| Infosys | 87, then none | 97.4% | not given |
| Wipro | 257, then 523 | 97.5% | 44.4% |
| HCLTech | 96, then 323, then 59 | 91.5% | 27.6% |
Data note: applications as reported by Business Standard from Perm Tracker; exports and foreign-currency spending from each parent company’s annual report for the year to March 2026, not the group’s; services exports from the RBI. The U.S. order is not in our store.
What we make of it
Kiwaro’s view is that this is a question of keeping people before it is a question of delivering work. The door being shut is one TCS, Infosys and HCL America had mostly stopped using, so the new filings lost are few. Wipro is the exception: its filings doubled to 523, the most of the four on the latest count reported. The people the order reaches are those already in the queue, whose applications now stand still, and how many they are at each company is not public.
Institutional perspective: HCLTech reports its quarter on 12 October, and Wipro and Tech Mahindra on 15 October.
