TCS shifts away from H-1B visas, boosts local recruitment in US

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will stop hiring new employees on H-1B visas in the United States and instead expand its workforce through local recruitment, Chief Executive K. Krithivasan said in an interview, according to Business Standard.

TCS is the single largest employer of H-1B workers in the US, having hired 98,259 applicants between 2009 and 2025. This year alone, it employed 5,505 H-1B workers, ahead of Microsoft, Google, Apple and Meta. But Krithivasan made clear that the group is now changing direction.

“We have enough people on H-1 already in the US. I don’t think we would be looking for adding to that count anytime now,” he said. On the question of renewals, he added that the company would decide “at the appropriate time,” stressing that TCS’s long-standing approach was to rotate overseas staff with locals rather than build permanent pools of foreign visa holders.

The policy shift reflects TCS’s broader push to boost local participation in its overseas markets. “At other geographies that we operate, like Latin America, the Middle East or Asia-Pacific, we operate with a very high percentage of local associates,” Krithivasan said. He noted that new client demands, particularly in artificial intelligence, require “much closer collaborations” and a “very diverse skillset” that go beyond traditional engineering.

Industry observers believe the decision could signal a broader trend. M. Dinesh, a consultancy manager in Hyderabad, told Business Standard that other technology majors may follow TCS’s lead. “With TCS CEO stating openly that they would not look at hiring new H-1B holders, it is just a matter of time before other major corporations like Amazon, Cognizant or Microsoft follow suit,” he said. 

Companies are expected to lean more heavily on L-1 visas, which allow intra-company transfers, rather than paying the $100,000 costs associated with H-1B sponsorship.

The move underscores shifting dynamics in the Indian IT industry’s biggest overseas market. For decades, firms like TCS and Infosys relied on H-1B visas to place engineers in client-facing roles. Now, with rising regulatory costs in the US and growing emphasis on AI-enabled services, the strategy is tilting towards local hiring and global reskilling.