Indian IT pulls back on US lobbying spend
Lobbying spending by Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Cognizant is in focus as the US government has tightened labour mobility and clamped down on access to foreign workers
The Indian IT industry has been slowing down on its lobbying efforts in the US in recent years, according to filings made to the US House of Representatives and accessed by Mint.
The development comes on the back of H-1B visas becoming a flashpoint for the US administration, with Indian companies expected to be among the hardest hit by a massive increase in fees for the visa, among other reasons.
Indian IT’s biggest lobbyist, Teaneck, New Jersey-based Cognizant Technologies, has sharply cut its lobbying spend from more than $3 million in 2020 to $2 million in 2024. The first nine months of 2025 has seen the company spend even lower — $1.7 million — on lobbying efforts.
Industry body Nasscom has also scaled back sharply. In 2024, it spent $360,000 on lobbying, almost half the $700,000 spent in 2020. In the first nine months of 2025, it has spent far less comparatively — just about $20,000.
To be sure, India’s two biggest IT services firms — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys — have seen their lobbying costs rise each year from 2022 through 2024. TCS spent $1.04 million in 2024, compared to $930,000 in 2022, while for Infosys the numbers over the same period were $360,000 and $320,000.
However, both firms have seen a fall in the nine months of 2025 — to $670,000 for TCS and $270,000 for Infosys — although these are not strictly comparable to the full-year numbers of 2024.
Fourth-largest Wipro Ltd had incurred lobbying costs of $90,000 in 2022 as against $210,000 in 2020. It has not employed any lobbying services since 2022.
Emails sent to TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, and Nasscom on Friday went unanswered.
Apart from the H-1B issue, analysts and lobby disclosures also point to other factors behind the pullback, including a structural shift toward local hiring, tighter US scrutiny of offshore-heavy delivery models, diminishing returns from traditional lobbying, and a growing strategic emphasis on automation and AI—areas where regulatory positions are still fluid.
“The traditional visa-dependent model is being rewritten," said Phil Fersht, chief executive of consultancy firm HFS Research. “Firms have doubled down on local hiring, boosted offshore delivery, and are now laser-focused on using AI to reduce dependency on large onshore workforces. When your operating model shifts, your lobbying priorities shift with it."
Another analyst, Peter Bendor-Samuel, founder of global research firm Everest Group, said that with the change in the political climate and offshoring clearly out of favour with the current US administration, a less receptive audience is not worth the investment.
“I think the Indian firms are resigned to the new political dynamics and feel that a higher profile through lobbying would be counterproductive," he said.
H-1B remains a flashpoint
Each of the top three tech service providers counted norms around H-1B visas as one of their key lobbying issues, according to a Mint analysis of lobby filings in the US.
“Legislation and US policy related to passport processing reform and H-1B and other employment-related visas," read TCS’s lobby report filed in the January-March 2025 period.
Cognizant raised a similar lobby issue. “Provide strategic guidance and counsel on tax issues and the impact to Cognizant; provide strategic guidance and counsel on immigration related issues and the impact to Cognizant," read Cognizant’s July-September 2025 lobby report.
“Provide strategic guidance and counsel on potential changes and/or opportunities to federal workforce development programs; provide strategic guidance and counsel changes and/or opportunities to/in STEM education," it added.
For Infosys, lobbying issues in the year so far pertained to “legislation, rulemaking and policies with respect to technology, workforce training, skilling and upskilling programs and policies; artificial intelligence legislative concepts and executive branch policies," according to its lobby filings.
Five years ago, automation was not a key talking point in the set of issues the company lobbied for in the US government, according to its lobby filings.
- Overall lobbying by top Indian IT firms has fallen sharply despite growing US immigration and visa restrictions.
- H-1B visas remain a core lobbying focus even as companies reduce their political spending footprint.
- Firms are shifting strategy from political influence to local hiring, offshoring and AI-led delivery models.
- Stricter US labour mobility rules now pose a direct profitability risk for India’s IT outsourcing giants.
The H-1B trigger
On 19 September, US President Donald Trump issued a proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee for new H-1B applications, increasing the fee tenfold. This move was a subject of discussion among homegrown tech circles and experts, as firms like TCS, Cognizant, and Infosys are among the 15 largest users of such non-immigrant visas.
IT firms place employees in client locations across the US to service their clients' IT needs. Making it costlier to send such IT professionals to the US would hurt the IT outsourcers’ profitability.
Five days later, Republican senator Charles E. Grassley and Democratic senator Richard J. Durbin targeted several companies, including TCS and Cognizant, over their hiring practices.
Both lawmakers wrote joint letters to K. Krithivasan and S. Ravi Kumar, chief executives of TCS and Cognizant, respectively, seeking responses on claims of race-based discrimination, and substitution of American workers with low-cost H-1B employees.
In the same month, Ohio senator Bernie Moreno proposed the Halting International Relocation of Employees (HIRE) Act to increase taxes on companies that hire offshore employees from their IT vendors.
The lobbying battle
Lobbyists try to influence lawmakers to pass policies and laws favourable to their clients. Indian IT’s big five routinely hire the services of lobbying firms to influence decision-making in the US, which makes up more than a third of their revenue.
Lobbyists for IT outsourcers typically meet lawmakers in the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, and also in the White House Office, signifying their reach in the top levels of the world’s largest economy.
Mumbai-based TCS has extensively used the services of Ohio-based law firm, Squire Patton Boggs, whereas Nasdaq-listed Cognizant has used the services of Washington DC-based BGR Government Affairs. On the other hand, Bengaluru-based Infosys has regularly employed Washington DC-based DGA Group Government Relations LLC.
Cognizant has also utilised lobbying services for issues related to AI, the proposed HIRE Act, and Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, making it one of the few large IT services companies to do so. Homegrown IT outsourcers have also employed such lobbyists to influence decisions on India-US bilateral relations.
In the first nine months of the year, Nasscom hired Squire Patton Boggs for lobbying purposes, details of which it did not specify. Each of the four times, it paid less than $5,000, according to the industry body’s lobby filings.
What about others?
IT, however, is not the only major sector to have the largest lobbying presence. Pharmaceutical and health products companies are also among the largest spenders on lobbyists in the US, as they seek to get favourable policies on drug pricing and healthcare legislation.
Big tech companies, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google, are some of the other large spenders on lobbyists, as they try to influence lawmakers on data privacy, AI and antitrust laws.
TCS, Cognizant, Cognizant, Infosys, and Wipro ended last fiscal year with $30.18 billion, $19.74 billion, $19.28 billion, and $10.51 billion in revenue, respectively. To be sure, Indian IT firms follow an April-March financial year, whereas Cognizant follows a January-December calendar.
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