Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all cases
Data as of
- Employers with certified H-1B filings, FY2020–FY2026
- 44
- Certified H-1B cases, FY2020–FY2026
- 440,669
- Highest role median (30+ cases, OpenAI MTS)
- $310,000
- Highest overall median (30+ cases, xAI)
- $290,000
What do AI labs and technology companies pay on US H-1B visa filings, how has that pay changed from FY2020 to FY2026, and which employers file the most cases? Across 440,669 certified H-1B cases (440,123 full-time cases passing wage checks) filed by 44 employers in US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Foreign Labor Certification disclosures through 21 October 2026, we estimate that among the 37 employers with at least 30 full-time wage cases, OpenAI leads on primary technical role pay at a median of $310,000 (member of technical staff, 268 cases), and xAI ($290,000), Mistral AI ($280,000), OpenAI ($278,000) and Character.AI ($275,000) lead on overall median pay—above every big-tech company, where overall medians run from $102,606 at IBM and $146,400 at Amazon to $190,000 at Meta, $198,590 at ByteDance and $223,579 at Netflix, and where big-tech employers file 83% of all cases.
Key findings
- Among the 37 employers with at least 30 full-time H-1B wage cases, OpenAI leads on primary technical role base pay at a median of $310,000 (member of technical staff, 268 cases, 25th–75th percentile $245,000 to $372,500), and xAI leads on overall median base salary at $290,000 (82 cases), ahead of Mistral AI ($280,000), OpenAI ($278,000) and Character.AI ($275,000). Across the 7 employers with fewer than 30 full-time cases, Safe Superintelligence records the highest overall median at $487,500 (4 cases).
- Across the four technical role groups among employers with at least 10 full-time cases in the role, OpenAI leads members of technical staff at $310,000 (268 cases), Mistral AI leads research scientists at $292,500 (50), Character.AI leads research engineers at $307,500 (16) and xAI leads software and ML engineers at $335,000 (14).
- Median full-time base pay was higher in FY2026 than in FY2020 at 24 of the 26 employers with cases in every fiscal year, and rose every year at 6 (Waymo, Google, IBM, Qualcomm, Tesla and Intel): OpenAI went from $182,500 (6 cases) in FY2020 to a peak of $310,000 (71 cases) in FY2024 and $260,000 (210 cases, +42% from FY2020) in FY2026; among tech and chip filers, FY2020-to-FY2026 medians moved by +45% at ByteDance ($165,000 to $240,000), +33% at Google ($144,738 to $193,000), +28% at Meta ($167,000 to $214,032), +24% at Microsoft ($142,410 to $177,000), +22% at NVIDIA ($152,844 to $186,472), +13% at Amazon ($140,000 to $158,000) and +12% at Apple ($155,000 to $173,769).
- At Anthropic, median
wage_fromwent from $320,000 in FY2024 (47 cases, zero with an upper bound) and $300,000 in FY2025 (100 cases, 40 with an upper bound) to $189,592 in FY2026 (191 cases, 189, or 99%, listing an upper bound at a $350,000 medianwage_to). - Big-tech employers file 83% of all certified cases (366,342 of 440,669): Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 252,764 (57%), and the top five filers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple) file 320,110 (73%). All 8 standalone frontier labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Mistral AI, Cohere, Thinking Machines Lab, Reflection AI and Safe Superintelligence) file 1,050 certified cases (0.2%).
Range plot of annual H-1B base salaries across 17 frontier labs and big-tech companies. OpenAI · MTS median $310k (middle half $245k to $373k, 268 cases); Mistral AI · Research scientist median $293k (middle half $263k to $330k, 50 cases); xAI · MTS median $275k (middle half $222k to $358k, 50 cases); Cohere · MTS median $240k (middle half $215k to $275k, 24 cases); Netflix · Software/ML eng. median $226k (middle half $184k to $283k, 945 cases).
Source: US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, LCA Programs (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3) disclosure data, FY2020–FY2026 (as of 21 October 2026); full-time certified H-1B cases. The table lists all 37 employers with at least 30 full-time wage cases.
Data table
| Organization | Primary technical role | Role cases | Role p25 | Role median | Role p75 | All-role cases | All-role median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | Member of technical staff | 268 | $245,000 | $310,000 | $372,500 | 431 | $278,000 |
| Character.AI | Research engineer | 16 | $293,750 | $307,500 | $331,250 | 37 | $275,000 |
| Mistral AI | Research scientist | 50 | $262,500 | $292,500 | $330,000 | 66 | $280,000 |
| xAI | Member of technical staff | 50 | $221,534 | $275,000 | $357,500 | 82 | $290,000 |
| Cohere | Member of technical staff | 24 | $215,000 | $240,000 | $275,000 | 52 | $229,000 |
| CoreWeave | Software or ML engineer | 24 | $213,750 | $230,000 | $268,250 | 102 | $223,800 |
| Netflix | Software or ML engineer | 945 | $184,080 | $226,158 | $283,442 | 1,824 | $223,579 |
| Anthropic | Member of technical staff | 260 | $187,574 | $213,512 | $315,000 | 345 | $213,512 |
| Together AI | Software or ML engineer | 32 | $187,574 | $213,512 | $213,512 | 71 | $209,082 |
| Scale AI | Software or ML engineer | 51 | $172,069 | $210,000 | $220,000 | 188 | $190,000 |
| Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) | Research scientist | 23 | $199,824 | $210,000 | $235,625 | 51 | $170,400 |
| Perplexity | Member of technical staff | 20 | $158,080 | $206,315 | $220,844 | 33 | $189,592 |
| Toyota Research Institute | Research scientist | 31 | $190,000 | $200,000 | $215,575 | 88 | $200,547 |
| ByteDance | Software or ML engineer | 2,169 | $160,000 | $200,000 | $249,000 | 4,724 | $198,590 |
| Thinking Machines Lab | Member of technical staff | 33 | $187,574 | $194,834 | $213,512 | 33 | $194,834 |
| Meta | Software or ML engineer | 17,382 | $172,000 | $193,000 | $217,528 | 36,782 | $190,000 |
| Reflection AI | Member of technical staff | 28 | $161,429 | $187,574 | $213,512 | 32 | $187,574 |
| Anysphere | Software or ML engineer | 17 | $161,637 | $187,574 | $189,592 | 38 | $187,168 |
| Uber | Software or ML engineer | 2,509 | $163,600 | $184,300 | $207,300 | 5,179 | $173,300 |
| Anyscale | Software or ML engineer | 41 | $168,000 | $181,650 | $212,552 | 56 | $181,000 |
| Waymo | Software or ML engineer | 1,213 | $165,000 | $181,000 | $205,000 | 1,792 | $185,000 |
| Snowflake | Software or ML engineer | 769 | $153,000 | $180,710 | $206,315 | 1,493 | $164,403 |
| Apple | Software or ML engineer | 13,093 | $156,000 | $177,681 | $198,856 | 30,491 | $170,000 |
| NVIDIA | Software or ML engineer | 2,725 | $153,504 | $176,200 | $205,449 | 8,390 | $173,239 |
| Salesforce | Software or ML engineer | 6,712 | $146,070 | $175,000 | $214,219 | 13,899 | $168,958 |
| Cerebras Systems | Member of technical staff | 129 | $147,534 | $172,640 | $189,613 | 174 | $182,540 |
| Adobe | Software or ML engineer | 3,251 | $145,000 | $169,950 | $196,000 | 6,152 | $164,403 |
| Software or ML engineer | 41,758 | $148,000 | $167,000 | $186,000 | 63,520 | $167,000 | |
| Tesla | Software or ML engineer | 2,425 | $145,000 | $166,480 | $193,880 | 11,341 | $142,000 |
| Databricks | Software or ML engineer | 890 | $142,000 | $163,350 | $180,000 | 1,728 | $154,950 |
| Palantir Technologies | Software or ML engineer | 189 | $145,000 | $160,000 | $180,000 | 616 | $150,000 |
| Microsoft | Software or ML engineer | 35,639 | $139,220 | $157,671 | $178,512 | 57,685 | $157,605 |
| Amazon | Software or ML engineer | 46,713 | $129,000 | $151,900 | $175,000 | 131,341 | $146,400 |
| Advanced Micro Devices | Member of technical staff | 1,266 | $131,352 | $146,000 | $164,574 | 4,391 | $140,000 |
| Qualcomm | Software or ML engineer | 4,894 | $111,322 | $122,744 | $141,378 | 16,141 | $126,464 |
| Intel | Software or ML engineer | 4,638 | $105,269 | $120,578 | $141,383 | 21,136 | $115,482 |
| IBM | Software or ML engineer | 6,367 | $81,931 | $98,904 | $124,051 | 19,548 | $102,606 |
How base pay compares across roles at frontier labs, AI startups and big tech
Across all 440,123 full-time wage cases, software and ML engineers make up 195,027 (44%), research scientists 14,579 (3%), members of technical staff 2,621 (1%) and research engineers 862 (0.2%), totaling 213,089 cases (48%) across the four technical groups, with the remaining 227,034 cases (52%) in other titles.
At 9 of the 37 employers with at least 30 full-time cases (OpenAI, xAI, Cohere, Anthropic, Perplexity, Thinking Machines Lab, Reflection AI, Cerebras Systems and Advanced Micro Devices), the largest technical role group is member of technical staff. OpenAI files 268 of its 431 full-time cases (62%) under member of technical staff—including parenthetical specialties such as Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer) (54 cases), Member of Technical Staff (Research & AI Systems) (22 cases) and Member of Technical Staff (Hardware Engineering) (22 cases)—and 162 (38%) under other titles, with one case in the standalone scientist or engineer groups. Anthropic puts 260 of 345 full-time cases (75%) and xAI puts 50 of 82 (61%) under member of technical staff. Mistral AI files 50 of its 66 full-time cases (76%) under research scientist, led by 44 AI Scientist filings. Across the 10 big-tech employers, software or ML engineer filings range from 33% at IBM and 36% at Amazon to 62% at Microsoft and 66% at Google.
- Member of technical staff (13 employers with 10+ full-time cases): OpenAI leads at $310,000 (268 cases, interquartile range $245,000 to $372,500), followed by xAI ($275,000, 50), Amazon ($272,500, 30), Cohere ($240,000, 24) and IBM ($238,104, 12). The four highest medians among the 9 employers with fewer than 10 cases in the role are at Periodic Labs ($550,000 across 7 cases), Safe Superintelligence ($487,500 across 4 cases), Runway ($300,000 across 5 cases) and Physical Intelligence ($245,000 across 5 cases).
- Research scientist (21 employers with 10+ full-time cases): Mistral AI leads at $292,500 (50 cases, interquartile range $262,500 to $330,000), followed by Scale AI ($255,000, 10), Netflix ($244,088, 67), ByteDance ($232,000, 269) and Salesforce ($226,561, 89). Among selected big-tech and chip filers, research scientist medians are $188,000 at Google (889 cases), $186,200 at Meta (2,961 cases), $176,571 at NVIDIA (350 cases), $169,600 at Amazon (5,849 cases), $168,002 at Apple (63 cases) and $157,970 at Microsoft (2,836 cases).
- Research engineer (13 employers with 10+ full-time cases): Character.AI leads at $307,500 (16 cases, interquartile range $293,750 to $331,250), followed by Netflix ($237,786, 19), Toyota Research Institute ($215,000, 12), Salesforce ($197,869, 16) and Google ($197,500, 174). At Google ($197,500) and Meta ($194,090), median base pay for research engineers sits above research scientists ($188,000 and $186,200) and above software and ML engineers ($167,000 and $193,000).
- Software or ML engineer (29 employers with 10+ full-time cases): xAI leads at $335,000 (14 cases, interquartile range $300,000 to $350,000), followed by Character.AI ($267,500, 12), CoreWeave ($230,000, 24), Netflix ($226,158, 945) and Together AI ($213,512, 32). Across selected tech filers, medians run from $193,000 at Meta (17,382 cases), $177,681 at Apple (13,093) and $176,200 at NVIDIA (2,725) to $167,000 at Google (41,758), $157,671 at Microsoft (35,639) and $151,900 at Amazon (46,713).
| Organization | MTS median (cases) | Research scientist (cases) | Research engineer (cases) | Software/ML eng. (cases) | Other titles (cases) | All full-time (cases) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Superintelligence | $487,500 (4) | — | — | — | — | $487,500 (4) |
| xAI | $275,000 (50) | — | — | $335,000 (14) | $218,125 (18) | $290,000 (82) |
| Mistral AI | — | $292,500 (50) | $310,000 (5) | $180,000 (7) | $157,500 (4) | $280,000 (66) |
| OpenAI | $310,000 (268) | — | — | $245,000 (1) | $250,000 (162) | $278,000 (431) |
| Character.AI | $187,574 (1) | $250,000 (1) | $307,500 (16) | $267,500 (12) | $250,000 (7) | $275,000 (37) |
| Cohere | $240,000 (24) | $370,000 (1) | $195,500 (1) | $200,000 (7) | $205,000 (19) | $229,000 (52) |
| CoreWeave | — | — | — | $230,000 (24) | $220,000 (78) | $223,800 (102) |
| Netflix | — | $244,088 (67) | $237,786 (19) | $226,158 (945) | $202,134 (793) | $223,579 (1,824) |
| Anthropic | $213,512 (260) | $169,541 (1) | $209,082 (7) | $320,000 (3) | $157,664 (74) | $213,512 (345) |
| Together AI | — | $209,082 (12) | $213,512 (3) | $213,512 (32) | $187,574 (24) | $209,082 (71) |
| ByteDance | — | $232,000 (269) | $173,000 (36) | $200,000 (2,169) | $190,000 (2,250) | $198,590 (4,724) |
| Thinking Machines Lab | $194,834 (33) | — | — | — | — | $194,834 (33) |
| Meta | — | $186,200 (2,961) | $194,090 (281) | $193,000 (17,382) | $187,686 (16,158) | $190,000 (36,782) |
| Scale AI | — | $255,000 (10) | $190,000 (21) | $210,000 (51) | $174,500 (106) | $190,000 (188) |
| Perplexity | $206,315 (20) | — | — | $264,514 (1) | $169,968 (12) | $189,592 (33) |
| Reflection AI | $187,574 (28) | — | — | $161,096 (2) | $273,426 (2) | $187,574 (32) |
| Anysphere | $194,834 (1) | $209,082 (7) | — | $187,574 (17) | $146,058 (13) | $187,168 (38) |
| Anyscale | $118,000 (3) | — | — | $181,650 (41) | $180,500 (12) | $181,000 (56) |
| NVIDIA | — | $176,571 (350) | $158,202 (4) | $176,200 (2,725) | $171,071 (5,311) | $173,239 (8,390) |
| Apple | — | $168,002 (63) | $181,656 (128) | $177,681 (13,093) | $163,000 (17,207) | $170,000 (30,491) |
| Salesforce | $156,749 (457) | $226,561 (89) | $197,869 (16) | $175,000 (6,712) | $160,701 (6,625) | $168,958 (13,899) |
| — | $188,000 (889) | $197,500 (174) | $167,000 (41,758) | $163,000 (20,699) | $167,000 (63,520) | |
| Adobe | $143,000 (1) | $195,000 (241) | $168,002 (9) | $169,950 (3,251) | $156,915 (2,650) | $164,403 (6,152) |
| Microsoft | — | $157,970 (2,836) | — | $157,671 (35,639) | $157,276 (19,210) | $157,605 (57,685) |
| Amazon | $272,500 (30) | $169,600 (5,849) | — | $151,900 (46,713) | $141,378 (78,749) | $146,400 (131,341) |
| Advanced Micro Devices | $146,000 (1,266) | — | — | $144,220 (484) | $135,000 (2,641) | $140,000 (4,391) |
| Qualcomm | — | $150,500 (132) | $135,400 (4) | $122,744 (4,894) | $126,880 (11,111) | $126,464 (16,141) |
| Intel | — | $133,050 (324) | $78,270 (74) | $120,578 (4,638) | $112,687 (16,100) | $115,482 (21,136) |
| IBM | $238,104 (12) | $222,820 (117) | $153,862 (22) | $98,904 (6,367) | $103,730 (13,030) | $102,606 (19,548) |
How H-1B base pay changed from FY2020 to FY2026
Twenty-six of the 44 employers have certified full-time wage cases in every fiscal year from FY2020 through FY2026, with FY2026 covering 1 October 2025 to 30 June 2026. The FY2026 median base salary sits above the FY2020 median at 24 of the 26 continuous filers—rising in every fiscal year at 6 (Waymo, Google, IBM, Qualcomm, Tesla and Intel)—and sits below the FY2020 median at 2 (Netflix, from $420,000 across 221 cases in FY2020 to $237,786 across 348 cases in FY2026 and Toyota Research Institute, from $207,500 across 16 cases in FY2020 to $205,000 across 18 cases in FY2026).
Line chart of annual median H-1B base pay from FY2020 to FY2026 for OpenAI, ByteDance, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. OpenAI moved from $183k in FY2020 to $260k in FY2026; ByteDance moved from $165k in FY2020 to $240k in FY2026; Meta moved from $167k in FY2020 to $214k in FY2026; Google moved from $145k in FY2020 to $193k in FY2026; Microsoft moved from $142k in FY2020 to $177k in FY2026; Amazon moved from $140k in FY2020 to $158k in FY2026.
Source: US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, LCA Programs (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3) disclosure data, FY2020–FY2026. The table lists all 26 employers with certified full-time wage cases in every fiscal year from FY2020 to FY2026.
Data table
| Organization | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 | Change FY2020–FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | $182,500 | $175,000 | $245,000 | $245,000 | $310,000 | $282,500 | $260,000 | +42% |
| ByteDance | $165,000 | $170,000 | $185,000 | $194,660 | $207,400 | $204,680 | $240,000 | +45% |
| Netflix | $420,000 | $170,872 | $184,080 | $192,941 | $283,442 | $226,158 | $237,786 | -43% |
| Scale AI | $142,147 | $130,000 | $158,000 | $164,000 | $174,500 | $185,000 | $220,000 | +55% |
| Meta | $167,000 | $170,000 | $180,400 | $198,940 | $203,350 | $203,350 | $214,032 | +28% |
| Waymo | $165,000 | $170,000 | $175,000 | $179,000 | $188,000 | $203,000 | $205,000 | +24% |
| Toyota Research Institute | $207,500 | $173,500 | $182,500 | $212,500 | $215,000 | $205,000 | $205,000 | -1% |
| Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) | $171,000 | $147,400 | $165,000 | $159,650 | $181,750 | $216,300 | $203,515 | +19% |
| Salesforce | $121,139 | $141,184 | $175,000 | $165,538 | $187,486 | $201,000 | $197,396 | +63% |
| Uber | $150,000 | $145,800 | $172,700 | $167,174 | $178,900 | $191,500 | $194,600 | +30% |
| $144,738 | $155,000 | $161,000 | $168,000 | $179,000 | $184,000 | $193,000 | +33% | |
| Cerebras Systems | $168,979 | $170,872 | $179,566 | $168,000 | $185,000 | $215,592 | $190,000 | +12% |
| NVIDIA | $152,844 | $158,371 | $157,477 | $167,149 | $177,741 | $185,155 | $186,472 | +22% |
| Adobe | $139,027 | $142,791 | $141,368 | $165,000 | $177,362 | $184,000 | $184,630 | +33% |
| Anyscale | $95,000 | $147,500 | $146,000 | $215,000 | $170,112 | $211,261 | $184,000 | +94% |
| Microsoft | $142,410 | $143,020 | $150,000 | $163,200 | $162,000 | $170,790 | $177,000 | +24% |
| Apple | $155,000 | $163,322 | $171,680 | $173,000 | $170,000 | $175,800 | $173,769 | +12% |
| Snowflake | $120,931 | $150,654 | $180,000 | $174,155 | $180,960 | $180,710 | $161,637 | +34% |
| Amazon | $140,000 | $132,500 | $140,000 | $141,900 | $152,950 | $152,100 | $158,000 | +13% |
| IBM | $89,606 | $95,170 | $98,426 | $105,710 | $112,258 | $121,354 | $157,773 | +76% |
| Databricks | $150,000 | $154,000 | $147,250 | $148,972 | $153,046 | $166,962 | $156,998 | +5% |
| Qualcomm | $116,900 | $117,600 | $120,224 | $126,000 | $126,880 | $134,500 | $152,506 | +30% |
| Tesla | $125,000 | $130,000 | $135,000 | $140,566 | $145,000 | $150,000 | $150,070 | +20% |
| Advanced Micro Devices | $119,999 | $136,240 | $141,378 | $134,904 | $143,000 | $150,000 | $148,500 | +24% |
| Palantir Technologies | $140,000 | $150,000 | $160,000 | $155,000 | $152,000 | $145,000 | $146,666 | +5% |
| Intel | $104,034 | $106,080 | $110,361 | $115,482 | $120,640 | $128,738 | $133,432 | +28% |
Among continuous filers, OpenAI is the only standalone frontier lab with certified cases in all seven fiscal years. Its overall median base salary went from $182,500 in FY2020 (6 cases) and $175,000 in FY2021 (9 cases) to a peak of $310,000 in FY2024 (71 cases), then $282,500 in FY2025 (102 cases) and $260,000 in FY2026 (210 cases, +42% from FY2020). Within OpenAI's member of technical staff roles, the median was $212,500 in FY2020 (4 cases), $360,000 in FY2024 (54 cases), $325,000 in FY2025 (65 cases) and $306,000 in FY2026 (117 cases). In FY2024, 17 of OpenAI's 71 full-time cases (24%) were in other titles (median $240,000); in FY2026, 93 of 210 (44%) were in other titles (median $250,000).
Across big-tech and chip filers with research scientist cases in both FY2020 and FY2026, FY2026 research scientist medians are above FY2020 levels at all seven: ByteDance ($182,000 across 22 cases in FY2020 to $337,000 across 75 in FY2026, +85%), Google ($154,000 across 88 cases in FY2020 to $205,000 across 205 in FY2026, +33%), Meta ($160,000 across 251 cases in FY2020 to $211,778 across 691 in FY2026, +32%), Apple ($145,000 across 7 cases in FY2020 to $190,819 across 10 in FY2026, +32%), Microsoft ($143,000 across 513 cases in FY2020 to $187,573 across 272 in FY2026, +31%), NVIDIA ($141,586 across 15 cases in FY2020 to $178,006 across 110 in FY2026, +26%) and Amazon ($155,000 across 630 cases in FY2020 to $180,000 across 1,120 in FY2026, +16%).
Anthropic recorded a median wage_from of $320,000 across 47 full-time cases in FY2024 (zero with wage_to) and $300,000 across 100 cases in FY2025 (40 with wage_to, median $320,000). In FY2026, 189 of Anthropic's 191 full-time filings (99%) listed wage_to, with a $189,592 median wage_from ($209,082 across 150 MTS cases; median prevailing wage $171,621) and a $350,000 median wage_to. At Thinking Machines Lab, 9 full-time cases in FY2025 had a median wage_from of $450,000 (2 with wage_to), and all 24 cases in FY2026 listed wage_to, with a $194,834 median wage_from (median prevailing wage $194,834) and a $475,000 median wage_to. The widest gaps between median wage_from and wage_to among the 37 employers with 30+ cases are at Thinking Machines Lab (79% of full-time filings listing wage_to, median wage_from $194,834, median wage_to $475,000), Reflection AI (100% of full-time filings listing wage_to, median wage_from $187,574, median wage_to $325,000), Anthropic (68% of full-time filings listing wage_to, median wage_from $213,512, median wage_to $340,000), Anysphere (92% of full-time filings listing wage_to, median wage_from $187,168, median wage_to $300,000), xAI (29% of full-time filings listing wage_to, median wage_from $290,000, median wage_to $400,000) and OpenAI (23% of full-time filings listing wage_to, median wage_from $278,000, median wage_to $377,500).
| Frontier lab or AI startup | First fiscal year (cases) | First-year median wage_from | FY2025 median (cases) | FY2026 median (cases) | FY2026 median wage_to (range cases) | All-years median (cases) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | FY2020 (6) | $182,500 | $282,500 (102) | $260,000 (210) | $460,000 (44) | $278,000 (431) |
| Safe Superintelligence | FY2025 (1) | $150,000 | $150,000 (1) | $500,000 (3) | — | $487,500 (4) |
| Periodic Labs | FY2025 (2) | $380,716 | $380,716 (2) | $375,000 (7) | — | $375,000 (9) |
| xAI | FY2023 (2) | $350,000 | $290,000 (26) | $240,000 (45) | $400,000 (16) | $290,000 (82) |
| Mistral AI | FY2024 (4) | $340,000 | $270,000 (14) | $280,000 (48) | $300,000 (47) | $280,000 (66) |
| Character.AI | FY2022 (1) | $250,000 | $260,000 (7) | $260,000 (9) | $310,000 (7) | $275,000 (37) |
| Inflection AI | FY2023 (1) | $200,000 | $240,000 (2) | $254,757 (4) | — | $240,000 (8) |
| Cohere | FY2021 (2) | $195,000 | $230,000 (11) | $275,000 (9) | $275,000 (9) | $229,000 (52) |
| Anthropic | FY2021 (1) | $250,000 | $300,000 (100) | $189,592 (191) | $350,000 (189) | $213,512 (345) |
| Together AI | FY2023 (3) | $195,000 | $206,315 (17) | $209,082 (45) | $240,000 (41) | $209,082 (71) |
| Cognition | FY2024 (2) | $175,000 | — | $205,000 (6) | $275,000 (6) | $200,000 (8) |
| Thinking Machines Lab | FY2025 (9) | $450,000 | $450,000 (9) | $194,834 (24) | $475,000 (24) | $194,834 (33) |
| Runway | FY2020 (1) | $101,000 | $143,894 (3) | $220,000 (7) | $275,000 (7) | $190,000 (21) |
| Perplexity | FY2023 (2) | $158,080 | $189,592 (9) | $213,512 (15) | $310,000 (15) | $189,592 (33) |
Which employers file the most H-1B cases
Amazon leads with 131,434 certified cases (30% of all 440,669 cases across the 44 employers), followed by Google (63,632, 14%), Microsoft (57,698, 13%), Meta (36,817, 8%) and Apple (30,529, 7%). Together, the top three employers file 252,764 certified cases (57%), and the top five file 320,110 (73%).
Horizontal stacked bar chart of the top 12 H-1B employers by certified case count from FY2020 to FY2026, led by Amazon (131,434 cases, median $146k), Google (63,632 cases, median $167k), Microsoft (57,698 cases, median $158k), Meta (36,817 cases, median $190k), Apple (30,529 cases, median $170k).
Source: US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, LCA Programs (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3) disclosure data, FY2020–FY2026. The table lists all 44 employers with certified H-1B filings.
Data table
| Organization | Certified cases | Worker positions | Software/ML eng. | Research & MTS | Other titles | Full-time wage cases | Median base pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 131,434 | 613,232 | 46,730 | 5,888 | 78,816 | 131,341 | $146,400 |
| 63,632 | 64,919 | 41,809 | 1,077 | 20,746 | 63,520 | $167,000 | |
| Microsoft | 57,698 | 84,267 | 35,646 | 2,838 | 19,214 | 57,685 | $157,605 |
| Meta | 36,817 | 62,485 | 17,397 | 3,243 | 16,177 | 36,782 | $190,000 |
| Apple | 30,529 | 101,342 | 13,109 | 191 | 17,229 | 30,491 | $170,000 |
| Intel | 21,154 | 30,425 | 4,647 | 399 | 16,108 | 21,136 | $115,482 |
| IBM | 19,562 | 19,562 | 6,374 | 151 | 13,037 | 19,548 | $102,606 |
| Qualcomm | 16,157 | 387,412 | 4,899 | 136 | 11,122 | 16,141 | $126,464 |
| Salesforce | 13,938 | 16,298 | 6,725 | 565 | 6,648 | 13,899 | $168,958 |
| Tesla | 11,358 | 12,708 | 2,427 | 14 | 8,917 | 11,341 | $142,000 |
| NVIDIA | 8,463 | 147,733 | 2,738 | 376 | 5,349 | 8,390 | $173,239 |
| Adobe | 6,167 | 8,119 | 3,259 | 251 | 2,657 | 6,152 | $164,403 |
| Uber | 5,188 | 14,505 | 2,514 | 156 | 2,518 | 5,179 | $173,300 |
| ByteDance | 4,731 | 5,903 | 2,173 | 306 | 2,252 | 4,724 | $198,590 |
| Advanced Micro Devices | 4,395 | 5,014 | 485 | 1,268 | 2,642 | 4,391 | $140,000 |
| Netflix | 1,834 | 2,315 | 950 | 86 | 798 | 1,824 | $223,579 |
| Waymo | 1,796 | 1,796 | 1,215 | 73 | 508 | 1,792 | $185,000 |
| Databricks | 1,730 | 6,878 | 891 | 18 | 821 | 1,728 | $154,950 |
| Snowflake | 1,502 | 14,596 | 772 | 10 | 720 | 1,493 | $164,403 |
| Palantir Technologies | 617 | 617 | 189 | 6 | 422 | 616 | $150,000 |
| OpenAI | 433 | 1,698 | 1 | 270 | 162 | 431 | $278,000 |
| Anthropic | 347 | 596 | 3 | 269 | 75 | 345 | $213,512 |
| Scale AI | 188 | 188 | 51 | 31 | 106 | 188 | $190,000 |
| Cerebras Systems | 174 | 174 | 11 | 130 | 33 | 174 | $182,540 |
| CoreWeave | 102 | 102 | 24 | 0 | 78 | 102 | $223,800 |
| Toyota Research Institute | 89 | 89 | 20 | 43 | 26 | 88 | $200,547 |
| xAI | 82 | 540 | 14 | 50 | 18 | 82 | $290,000 |
| Together AI | 73 | 73 | 32 | 15 | 26 | 71 | $209,082 |
| Mistral AI | 66 | 66 | 7 | 55 | 4 | 66 | $280,000 |
| Anyscale | 56 | 56 | 41 | 3 | 12 | 56 | $181,000 |
| Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) | 55 | 55 | 7 | 38 | 10 | 51 | $170,400 |
| Cohere | 52 | 52 | 7 | 26 | 19 | 52 | $229,000 |
| Anysphere | 41 | 42 | 18 | 9 | 14 | 38 | $187,168 |
| Character.AI | 37 | 37 | 12 | 18 | 7 | 37 | $275,000 |
| Perplexity | 34 | 34 | 1 | 20 | 13 | 33 | $189,592 |
| Reflection AI | 33 | 34 | 2 | 29 | 2 | 32 | $187,574 |
| Thinking Machines Lab | 33 | 33 | 0 | 33 | 0 | 33 | $194,834 |
| Runway | 21 | 21 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 21 | $190,000 |
| Hugging Face | 12 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 12 | $147,488 |
| Physical Intelligence | 10 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 9 | $187,574 |
| Periodic Labs | 9 | 9 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 9 | $375,000 |
| Cognition | 8 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 | $200,000 |
| Inflection AI | 8 | 8 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 8 | $240,000 |
| Safe Superintelligence | 4 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | $487,500 |
Across all 8 standalone frontier AI labs with certified filings (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Mistral AI, Cohere, Thinking Machines Lab, Reflection AI and Safe Superintelligence), certified H-1B filings total 1,050 cases (0.2% of the 440,669 total): OpenAI with 433 (431 full-time wage cases, median $278,000), Anthropic with 347 (345 full-time wage cases, median $213,512), xAI with 82 (82 full-time wage cases, median $290,000), Mistral AI with 66 (66 full-time wage cases, median $280,000), Cohere with 52 (52 full-time wage cases, median $229,000), Thinking Machines Lab with 33 (33 full-time wage cases, median $194,834), Reflection AI with 33 (32 full-time wage cases, median $187,574) and Safe Superintelligence with 4 (4 full-time wage cases, median $487,500). Among other AI startups and research institutes, filing volume is led by Databricks (1,730 cases, median $154,950), Scale AI (188 cases, median $190,000), Cerebras Systems (174 cases, median $182,540), Toyota Research Institute (89 cases, median $200,547), Together AI (73 cases, median $209,082), Anyscale (56 cases, median $181,000), Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) (55 cases, median $170,400) and Anysphere (41 cases, median $187,168).
All 25 quarterly DOL disclosure files (FY2020–FY2026)
Career data comes from the biographies on this site and from OpenAlex author records, as of 22 October 2026. People whose OpenAlex record may be incomplete or mixed are left out of citation figures.