Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services company, has announced a major shift in its hiring strategy. It will no longer hire new employees on H-1B visas in the United States. Instead, the tech giant plans to expand its workforce through local recruitment, marking a significant step toward increasing local participation in its overseas operations.
TCS CEO K. Krithivasan confirmed the decision in an interview with Business Standard. He stated that the company already has enough employees working in the U.S. on H-1B visas and will not be adding to that number anytime soon. “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,” Krithivasan said.
TCS is currently the largest employer of H-1B workers in the U.S., with 98,259 hires between 2009 and 2025. This year alone, the company employed 5,505 H-1B visa holders, surpassing even global tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Meta. However, Krithivasan explained that the company’s long-standing approach has always been to rotate overseas staff with local employees rather than building a permanent pool of foreign workers.
On the question of renewals, he said decisions would be made “at the appropriate time,” adding that the company’s broader focus now lies in strengthening its local talent base in all key 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. “As we move into new areas such as artificial intelligence, it’s becoming clear that we need much closer collaborations with clients and a very diverse skill set that goes beyond traditional engineering.”
Industry experts believe TCS’s move could set a precedent for other global technology companies. M. Dinesh, a consultancy manager based in Hyderabad, commented that other firms may soon follow TCS’s example. “With the 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.
He added that companies are likely to rely more on L-1 visas, which allow intra-company transfers, because they are more cost-effective than the expensive H-1B sponsorship process, which can cost around $100,000 per applicant.
The shift away from H-1B hiring reflects broader changes in the Indian IT industry’s approach to global markets. For decades, firms like TCS and Infosys depended on H-1B visas to place Indian engineers in client-facing roles across the U.S. But rising visa costs, stricter regulations, and evolving business models driven by AI and digital transformation are prompting companies to rethink their global talent strategies.
Krithivasan emphasized that future client demands, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, will require teams that are locally based, collaborative, and highly adaptable. “It’s going to require much closer collaborations with our clients and a very diverse skillset,” he said.
TCS’s decision highlights a major turning point in how Indian IT firms manage their international workforces. The focus on local recruitment is expected to strengthen the company’s relationships with U.S. clients, promote cultural alignment, and help build teams that can work more closely on complex, innovation-driven projects.
