H-1B Salary in 2026: What the Data Shows by Role, City, and Level

There is no single H-1B salary. What you can be paid depends on your occupation, your work location, and the wage level your employer files at, and all three are anchored to government wage data. In 2026, that floor ranges from around $100,000 for some computer roles to more than $225,000 in the highest-paying fields, and a proposed rule could push every number higher.

What counts as an H-1B salary

Before an employer can sponsor your H-1B visa, the salary has to clear a legal floor. That floor is the higher of two numbers: the prevailing wage for your occupation and location, or the actual wage the employer already pays other workers doing similar work at the same site. The employer certifies the figure on the Labor Condition Application filed with the Department of Labor.

The prevailing wage itself comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, sorted into four wage levels for your role and metro. Which level your role is filed at decides which point in the local pay range becomes your floor.

For how the levels work, see our guide to H-1B wage levels.

H-1B salary by role

Computer-related occupations dominate the program. Of the 406,348 H-1B petitions approved in fiscal year 2025, about 252,088, or 62%, were for computer-related roles, according to the USCIS FY2025 characteristics report.

The table below shows the national median pay for the most-sponsored roles, drawn from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, the same dataset that sets the prevailing wage floor.

These are national medians across the whole labor market, and they set the benchmark the prevailing wage is built on. Management and senior specialist roles in the same fields run higher still, often above $140,000. Your own floor moves up or down from here based on your metro and your wage level.

How your city changes the number

Where you work changes an H-1B salary more than almost anything else, because the prevailing wage is calculated per metropolitan area.

Software developers had a national median of $135,990 as of May 2025, but the same role runs well above $180,000 in the San Jose metro, the highest-paying market in the country.

Across the roughly 70 metros BLS tracks for the role, medians range from around $104,000 in lower-cost areas to more than $213,000 in the highest-paying ones.

The practical effect is that a Level 2 role in San Jose can carry a higher floor than a Level 3 role in a lower-cost metro.

You can look up the figure for your own role and location in the BLS wage data by area, or check the exact prevailing wage an employer must meet in the Department of Labor's OFLC wage search.

How your wage level changes the number

Within a single role and city, your salary floor still depends on your wage level.

The Department of Labor sets four levels, currently at roughly the 17th, 34th, 50th, and 67th percentiles of local pay, as of July 2026. Level 1 is entry-level and Level 4 is fully competent, senior work.

Because each level jumps to a higher percentile rather than adding a fixed amount, moving up a level often changes your floor more than a flat-dollar negotiation. The level tracks the job's duties, not your personal experience, so a senior role filed at Level 1 is worth questioning.

Wage level now carries a second effect too: under the H-1B lottery process, higher levels are weighted more favorably, so the level can influence whether your petition is selected at all.

What the H-1B data shows overall

The USCIS FY2025 characteristics report gives the clearest picture of what employers offered H-1B workers. Beneficiaries with a bachelor's degree had a median annual compensation of about $132,000, close to the broader market median for software developers. Pay climbs with the field, and law and jurisprudence roles topped the list with a median above $225,000.

A 2026 rule could raise the floor

On March 27, 2026, the Department of Labor published a proposed rule that would raise the wage floor across all four levels. Level 1 would move from the 17th to the 34th percentile, and Level 4 from the 67th to the 88th, with the Department estimating an average increase of about $14,000 per year per worker.

As of July 2026, this is a proposal, not law. The public comment period closed on May 26, 2026, and no final rule or effective date has been issued. Until a final rule takes effect, the current wage floors still apply, and any change would affect only new filings, not petitions already approved.

You can track the status on the Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification page.

Finding an H-1B visa sponsorship job

When you are ready to find roles, Migrate Mate lists U.S. employers with verified sponsorship history drawn from government disclosure data, and lets you contact hiring managers directly instead of waiting on a referral. That turns salary research into a shortlist of real H-1B visa sponsors you can approach.

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