Mutual funds lost nearly Rs 13,000 crore in market value across India’s top 10 IT companies after a sharp sell-off triggered by the US President Donald Trump’s executive order to sharply increase H-1B visa fees.
The move, viewed as a direct blow to sector profitability and hiring strategies, unsettled investors and cut IT valuations.
As of 19 September, mutual funds held shares worth Rs 3.41 lakh crore in the top 10 IT firms by market capitalisation. By the opening of trade on 22 September, this had slipped to Rs 3.28 lakh crore.
Infosys remained the largest holding at Rs 1.27 lakh crore, followed by TCS at Rs 62,000 crore and HCLTech at Rs 35,850 crore. Other significant exposures included Coforge (Rs 21,720 crore), Persistent Systems (Rs 18,900 crore), Mphasis (Rs 13,240 crore), Wipro (Rs 11,600 crore), LTIMindtree (Rs 8,189 crore) and Oracle Financial Services (Rs 4,348 crore).
Trump’s order raised the H-1B visa application fee from USD 1,000 to USD 100,000 per applicant — a 100-fold increase. While the sponsorship process remains unchanged, the steep costs are expected to reshape hiring economics, with the first material impact likely from FY27 when new petitions are filed.
According to JM Financial, the move is “margin neutral” in the near term, though second-order effects such as wage inflation in the domestic talent pool could erode margins by 15 to 50 basis points if local hiring rises without cost offsets. However, greater offshoring and client price renegotiations could balance the impact.
The brokerage also noted that India’s top IT players employ only 1.2–4.1 per cent of their workforce on H-1B visas, limiting potential disruption.
“With one of the biggest regulatory overhangs now behind, this event is net positive in our view,” JM Financial said.