[mlyle]

You never get someone to pay a large application fee without some kind of reasonable prospect of getting an exclusive right.

Else, if company A pays a $100k fee, company B has an incentive to give the worker $90,000 more to jump ship. And this devolves to no one paying the $100k fee.

[Retric]

Only if employees are actually interchangeable at the rate you’re paying. You might bring someone from oversees who knows your internal systems and is therefore worth far above market rates to your company relative to any other US company.

[gambiting]

Then it's not H1B visa anymore - internal employee transfers use different mechanisms.

[Retric]

An L Vista is designed for internal employee transfers, but that may not apply.

[CobrastanJorji]

What if we make the fee per-year? "It costs $10,000 to sponsor a new H1B immigrant's entry, and then it costs $5,000 per year per H-1B employee you have." H1-B holder is free to leave, and the cost of that happening to their employer is fairly low. Then let's say after 5 years of H1B employment, you automatically become eligible for citizenship, since you're clearly a valued worker.

[ModernMech]

That's what they're doing, it's going to be $100k per year to sponsor, up to 6 years.