The H-1B Salary Landscape in 2026
If you are evaluating an H-1B offer — or trying to understand whether your current compensation is competitive — wage data from the Labor Condition Application (LCA) process is one of the most reliable public benchmarks available. Every H-1B petition requires an LCA filing that certifies the prevailing wage for the role. That means the salary data is not a survey estimate — it is the number your employer committed to under federal law.
Work Visa Insights aggregates this LCA and H-1B filing data to surface salary intelligence across thousands of roles, employers, and geographies. Here is what the 2026 data shows about where the pay ceiling sits.
Top-Paying H-1B Job Categories in 2026
These role clusters consistently appear at the top of the certified wage distribution:
| Job Category | Typical Certified Wage Range | Primary Employers |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer / SWE III–V | $160,000 – $310,000 | Google, Meta, Apple, Stripe |
| Machine Learning Engineer | $185,000 – $340,000 | OpenAI, DeepMind, Google, Anthropic |
| Data Scientist | $145,000 – $260,000 | Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, Amazon |
| Quantitative Analyst / Quant Dev | $200,000 – $400,000 | Jane Street, Citadel, Two Sigma |
| Physician / Hospitalist | $180,000 – $380,000 | Academic medical centers, HCA |
| Product Manager (Technical) | $160,000 – $270,000 | Meta, Google, Salesforce |
| Security Engineer / AppSec | $155,000 – $250,000 | CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Google |
| Cloud Infrastructure Engineer | $140,000 – $230,000 | AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP teams |
These are certified prevailing wages pulled from LCA data — not posted job salaries, which can diverge significantly.
Why LCA Wages Are More Reliable Than Job Postings
Job postings often show ranges that span $60,000–$80,000. LCA data is different: it is a single certified number (or a narrow band) that the employer submitted to the Department of Labor before the petition was filed. That makes it:
- Employer-committed — they certified they will pay at least this amount
- Role-specific — tied to the exact SOC occupation code, not a department-level budget
- Location-adjusted — prevailing wage differs between San Jose and Dallas for the same role
When you compare your offer to LCA data in Work Visa Insights, you are comparing apples to apples.
The Employer Dimension: Same Role, Different Pay
Filing volume and approval rates get most of the attention, but salary variation within the same job title is where the real insight lives. Consider software engineering roles:
- A FAANG-tier employer filing for a Senior Software Engineer at wage level III in San Jose may certify $245,000+
- A mid-market IT staffing firm filing for the same SOC code at level II in Dallas may certify $105,000
Both are compliant H-1B petitions. The salary difference is 2.3×. This is why employer selection matters as much as role selection.
Use the H-1B employer profiles on Work Visa Insights to see:
- Median certified wages by employer across all their recent filings
- Wage level distribution (how many of their petitions are at level I vs. IV)
- Year-over-year salary trend per employer
Location Adjusts the Floor, Not the Ceiling
Prevailing wage minimums are set per metro area using OES (Occupational Employment Statistics) data. The wage level system (I–IV) multiplies those minimums based on experience and complexity. Here is how major metros compare for a Software Developer (SOC 15-1252):
| Metro Area | Level I Floor | Level III Floor | Level IV Floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Jose-Sunnyvale, CA | $142,000 | $195,000 | $222,000 |
| Seattle-Tacoma, WA | $132,000 | $181,000 | $206,000 |
| New York City, NY | $125,000 | $172,000 | $196,000 |
| Austin-Round Rock, TX | $108,000 | $148,000 | $169,000 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth, TX | $101,000 | $139,000 | $158,000 |
These floors matter because your offer must meet or exceed the certified prevailing wage. But elite employers routinely pay 30–60% above these floors. The LCA salary search lets you filter by SOC code and metro to find exactly where your offer sits relative to what others are receiving.
How to Use Work Visa Insights for Salary Benchmarking
Step 1 — Identify your SOC code Your job title maps to a Standard Occupational Classification code. Check the job offer letter or ask your employer's immigration contact for the SOC code they filed under.
Step 2 — Search LCA data by role Visit the LCA salary search and filter by your SOC code and metro. You will see a distribution of certified wages from recent filings — not just a single average but the full spread.
Step 3 — Check your employer's wage profile Open the H-1B employer directory and search for your employer. The employer profile shows median wages, wage level distribution, and year-over-year trends. If the employer's median is below the metro average for your role, that is a data point worth bringing to a negotiation conversation.
Step 4 — Run the wage calculator Use the H-1B wage calculator to input your role, location, and experience level. The calculator returns the prevailing wage minimums at all four levels so you can instantly see where your offer lands in the spectrum.
Red Flags in H-1B Salary Data
A few patterns in LCA data deserve extra attention:
- Wage level I filings for senior titles — A company filing a PhD-level role at wage level I is signaling that the certified wage is near the floor for that market. This is legal but worth questioning.
- High volume, low wage employers — Some staffing-heavy employers file thousands of petitions but at consistently low wage levels. The employer profile page surfaces this pattern clearly.
- Salary compression at job title pivots — Moving from an individual contributor role to a manager title sometimes does not trigger a wage reclassification in the LCA filing. Check whether the certified wage matches the complexity of what you are actually doing.
Practical Takeaway
Wage leadership is the right first filter — but it is not the only one. Use certified LCA wages to anchor your benchmark, then layer in employer approval quality and location cost-of-living context before treating a high certified wage as a proxy for a strong overall offer.
Explore:
- H-1B jobs directory — occupation-level petition and wage trends
- LCA salary search — certified wage distributions by role and city
- H-1B employer profiles — employer wage and approval quality
- Wage calculator — instant prevailing wage lookup
- LCA locations — state and metro salary benchmarks