As employers turn to budgeting and headcount planning for 2027, there’s a step worth adding to that process that doesn’t usually make the list: a review of where your sponsored foreign national employees actually stand. This year alone has brought an unusual volume of change to employment-based immigration, and a number of those changes carry real consequences for whether a valued employee can keep working, or keep working without new complications, going into next year.
The goal here isn’t to cause alarm. It’s to catch a filing deadline or a status question in October, while there’s still time to act on it, rather than in January, when the employee is already gone.
Why This Year Is Different
Employers who have sponsored foreign workers for years are used to a certain amount of regulatory churn. What’s been unusual about 2026 is the sheer number of developments landing at once, several of which are still unresolved as the year winds down. A few worth flagging specifically:
The proposed $103,265 H-1B fee. DHS has proposed a new fee on cap-subject H-1B petitions, separate from and on top of the existing $100,000 Proclamation fee. It’s still a proposal, but if it moves toward finalization anywhere near the FY 2028 lottery in March 2027, employers with H-1B workers should already be thinking through how they’d handle registration.
The Duration of Status rule, and its uncertain status. A federal court postponed DHS’s rule eliminating Duration of Status for F, J, and I nonimmigrants, one day before it was set to take effect. That’s good news for now, but the underlying case is still being litigated, and the rule could be revived depending on how it plays out. Employers with F-1 or J-1 employees, particularly those on OPT or STEM OPT, should not assume this is fully settled.
The proposed elimination of the 60-day grace period. DHS has formally proposed removing the grace period that currently gives E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1, and TN workers, and their dependents, up to 60 days after employment ends to change status, find a new sponsor, or otherwise wind down their affairs in the U.S. This one is squarely relevant to workforce planning: if finalized, any layoff, restructuring, or non-renewal involving one of these visa categories would come with a much smaller margin for error.
Layer on top of that ongoing shifts to public charge guidance, changes to TPS work authorization extensions, and continued scrutiny of practical training programs like CPT, and the pattern is clear: 2026 has been a year where the ground kept moving under employment-based sponsorship. Planning for 2027 without accounting for that is planning with an incomplete picture.
What a Year-End Workforce Review Should Actually Cover
A useful review doesn’t need to be exhaustive to be effective. At minimum, employers should be able to answer the following for each sponsored employee:
- What is this person’s current visa category, and when does their status expire?
- If their role, project, or worksite has changed this year, does their existing petition still accurately describe their job?
- For H-1B employees specifically, would this year’s proposed fee changes affect a planned extension, amendment, or new filing?
- For F-1 or J-1 employees on practical training, is their authorization tracked and set to be renewed or transitioned before it lapses?
- If this employee’s role were eliminated tomorrow, what would actually happen to their status, and how much time would they realistically have?
That last question is the one most worth sitting with. For many categories, the honest answer right now is “less time than you’d think, and possibly less than you had last year.”
The Cost of Not Looking
The risk of skipping this kind of review isn’t abstract. Losing a key engineer, researcher, or manager because a filing deadline was missed, or because a status question wasn’t caught until it became urgent, is an entirely avoidable form of operational disruption. It also carries its own compliance exposure: employers who allow a foreign national to continue working after their authorization has lapsed face liability under I-9 and related employment verification rules, separate and apart from the disruption to the business itself.
A company doesn’t need to overhaul how it manages immigration to get value out of this. A deliberate once-a-year look at where things actually stand, rather than where they stood the last time anyone checked, covers most of the ground.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should this kind of review actually happen?
Year-end, ahead of annual budget and headcount planning, is a natural time, since it gives employers a chance to build any needed filings or contingency plans into next year’s timeline rather than reacting after the fact.
Do we need to review every foreign national employee, or just certain categories?
Every sponsored employee is worth a quick check, but categories directly touched by this year’s developments, H-1B, F-1/OPT, J-1, and the other categories affected by the proposed grace period change, deserve closer attention given how much is currently in flux.
What if a proposed rule, like the grace period elimination, isn’t finalized yet?
Building a contingency plan around a proposal that hasn’t been finalized yet doesn’t mean assuming the worst. Several of this year’s proposals moved from announcement to formal publication faster than most people expected, and having a plan ready costs far less than building one under pressure.
What’s the biggest mistake employers make with foreign national workforce planning?
Treating immigration status as something that was handled once, at the time of hire, rather than something that needs periodic attention as roles, worksites, and the regulatory landscape all continue to change.
Where should we start if we haven’t done a review like this before?
Start with a simple inventory: who is sponsored, in what category, and when does their current status expire. From there, an immigration attorney can help identify which cases need closer attention given this year’s developments.
If you or your family members have questions about how this or other immigration and nationality matters may affect you, please do not hesitate to contact the immigration and nationality lawyers at NPZ Law Group. You can reach us by emailing info@visaserve.com or by visiting our website at www.visaserve.com for more information.