DHS Proposes a $70,000 Fee for F-1 Optional Practical Training: What the October 8, 2026 Proposed Rule Would Change for International Students and Schools in Texas

What Changed, and When

On October 8, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, published a notice of proposed rulemaking titled Optional Practical Training Fees in the Federal Register at 91 FR 64566. It carries DHS Docket No. ICEB-2026-0100 and RIN 1653-AB01, and it would amend 8 CFR part 214. The notice is signed by Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of Homeland Security, and was filed on October 7, 2026.

The notice states its own purpose and its own numbers in its SUMMARY. It proposes new fees for Optional Practical Training “to combat fraud, strengthen the integrity of the immigration system, and protect U.S. workers,” and says the fees “would apply for each F-1 nonimmigrant student to engage in OPT through a Student and Exchange Visitor Program-certified institution: $70,000 for initial OPT; and $30,000 for any subsequent OPT.”

Four details in the notice decide what the proposal would actually do:

• The school pays, and pays first. The proposed regulatory text requires an SEVP-certified educational institution to pay the amount for each F-1 student, and says the payment “must be made prior to the DSO recommending a student for OPT.” A designated school official cannot enter the OPT recommendation in SEVIS until the fee is paid.
• The $30,000 figure is for a later recommendation, not a separate STEM fee. It applies to each subsequent OPT recommendation for a student who has previously participated in OPT and for whom the $70,000 initial fee was paid. A STEM OPT extension falls in that subsequent category.
• The transition period is written into the proposal. The proposed text would apply the $70,000 fee to each student “who receives a DSO recommendation for OPT that is dated on or after” a date 60 days after publication of the final rule. Recommendations dated before that point would not carry the fee under the proposed text.
• Refunds are narrow and final. The proposal lets SEVP grant a school’s refund request case by case, but only while the student “has not been issued the employment authorization document” tied to that fee; the DSO must first remove the recommendation in SEVIS; the fee “will not be refunded under any circumstances” once the document has been granted; and refund determinations “are not subject to any administrative appeals.”

The two dates in the notice are different dates for different things. The DATES section reads: “Comments must be received on or before November 9, 2026,” and separately, for the information collection described in the Paperwork Reduction Act section, comments “must be received by December 7, 2026.” Comments go through the federal eRulemaking portal at regulations.gov under the docket number; the notice says comments sent by other methods will not be considered. That is the procedural record, stated here as fact.

DHS also described an alternative it did not propose. The notice says the agency considered exempting small educational institutions and estimates that 56 percent of regulated SEVP-certified institutions are small entities. No such exemption appears in the proposed regulatory text.

Who in Texas This Reaches

OPT is a federal program and the notice is a national document, but the population it describes is large in Texas and spread across the state rather than concentrated in one metro.

• International students already enrolled in Texas. Texas higher education held 92,020 international students according to October 2025 SEVIS data compiled by the Presidents’ Alliance Higher Ed Immigration Portal, and 27,362 OPT participants from Texas institutions in 2024.
• Students approaching a recommendation date. The group with the sharpest timing question is the one whose designated school official has not yet entered an OPT recommendation in SEVIS, because the proposed transition period turns on the date of that recommendation.
• Students on STEM OPT or planning a STEM extension. A STEM extension is a subsequent recommendation under the proposed text, so it would carry the $30,000 amount rather than a separate figure.
• SEVP-certified institutions across Texas. The payment obligation in the proposed text sits with the school. That reaches public university systems, private universities, community college districts, and smaller certified institutions in markets such as Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland and Odessa, El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley, Waco, Tyler and Corpus Christi, not only the large metros.
• Employers who hire OPT graduates. Texas employers in energy, health care, semiconductors, software, aviation and logistics hire from this population, and the notice itself discusses the interests of employers alongside those of students and schools.
• Households where a student’s work permission supports dependents. F-2 dependents do not have work authorization of their own, so a change in the student’s OPT timeline reaches the whole household.

What This Changes Legally

As of today, nothing has changed for anyone’s OPT. This is a proposed rule. A notice of proposed rulemaking does not alter any requirement on the day it publishes; it opens a comment period and states what the agency is considering. Current OPT rules, current recommendations and current employment authorization documents stand on the regulations in force.

What the proposal would change, if finalized as written, is the order of operations inside the school. Today a designated school official enters an OPT recommendation in SEVIS and the student then files Form I-765 with USCIS. Under the proposed text, the institution’s payment comes before the recommendation can be entered at all, and USCIS would not grant the employment authorization without the required payment having been made.

A fee paid by a school is not necessarily a cost absorbed by a school. The proposed text places the legal obligation on the institution. It does not require an institution to pass the amount on, and it does not prohibit it. How any particular Texas institution would respond is a decision that institution has not yet had to make, and no reader should assume an answer for their own school.

The 60-day transition date is the hinge, and it is measured from a final rule that does not exist yet. The proposed text ties the fee to the date of the DSO recommendation, not the date a student files, not the date an employer makes an offer, and not the date a degree is conferred. Whether a final rule issues at all, when, and with what transition language are open questions as of this date.

The refund language matters most to institutions. A refund is discretionary with SEVP, available only before the employment authorization document is issued, conditioned on the DSO removing the recommendation in SEVIS, and unreviewable on administrative appeal. The notice also says SEVP may issue further guidance on refund adjudications on the Study in the States website.

Proposed rules are frequently changed before they are final, and some are not finalized. DHS states that it will consider all comments received during the comment period and may change the rule based on them. Separately, large immigration fee requirements have drawn litigation in the recent past, including the court order of September 30, 2026 addressing the H-1B payment policies, so the path from proposal to practice is not a straight line.

This page reports the facts and takes no position on the proposal, the agencies involved, any official, any party or any candidate.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing on this page is legal advice, and nothing here says that any particular student will or will not owe anything, will or will not receive OPT, or does or does not fall inside a transition period. That depends on I-20 records, program end dates, prior OPT history, SEVIS entries and filing dates that a lawyer has to read. What an experienced Texas immigration attorney can review includes:

• Where a student’s own timeline sits relative to a recommendation date, a program end date and the 60-day structure described in the proposal.
• What a prior period of OPT means for whether a future recommendation would be an initial or a subsequent one under the proposed text.
• How a STEM extension plan interacts with the subsequent-recommendation language, and what the current STEM rules require regardless of this proposal.
• What other work-authorized or status options exist on the same facts, which is a question that arises whenever one pathway becomes less certain.
• What a gap in employment authorization would mean for status, for travel and for a later filing, and how the existing grace-period rules apply to a specific set of dates.
• For an institution, what the payment, recommendation and refund sequence would require of its designated school officials and its finance operations, and what its comment on the rulemaking record could address.
• For an employer, how a hiring timeline built around OPT candidates would read against the proposal, and what alternatives exist for a particular role.
• Whether anything in a student’s record needs attention now for reasons unrelated to this proposal, which is often what a first review actually turns up.

Many students who read a headline with a number this large find that their own situation is steadier than the headline suggested once someone walks the dates with them, and options often exist that are not obvious from a proposed rule alone. The point of talking to a lawyer early is to know where you actually stand.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

The comment period on this proposal runs to November 9, 2026, and the information-collection comment period to December 7, 2026. Those are the dates on the rulemaking record. The date that would reach an individual student is a different one: a point 60 days after a final rule publishes, if a final rule publishes, measured against the date a designated school official enters an OPT recommendation.

An OPT timeline is already built out of dates nobody can move — a program end date, the window in which Form I-765 may be filed, and the grace period that follows a program. Those windows are measured in weeks, and the records a filing needs, such as updated I-20s, transcripts and employer letters, take time the calendar does not give back. It is best to talk to a lawyer while there is still room on the calendar rather than after a window has closed, and a question that takes one conversation in October can take a motion and many months later on.

Sources

1. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, Optional Practical Training Fees, notice of proposed rulemaking, 91 FR 64566, published October 8, 2026, DHS Docket No. ICEB-2026-0100, RIN 1653-AB01 — the fee amounts, the DATES section, the payment and refund provisions and the transition period (primary source).
2. U.S. Government Publishing Office, Federal Register PDF of 2026-20660, Vol. 91, No. 194, October 8, 2026 — the official print version of the same notice.
3. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “DHS Proposes Fees for Foreign Student Work Program to Protect American Jobs”, October 7, 2026 — the agency’s own announcement of the proposal.
4. “DHS Proposes Significant New Fees for F-1 OPT Program” — independent confirmation of the amounts, of the school as the paying party, and of the 60-day effective structure.
5. “DHS Proposes $70,000 OPT Fee and $30,000 STEM OPT Fee for International Students” — a second independent account of the amounts, the payment sequence and the comment period.
6. Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, Higher Ed Immigration Portal, Texas state page — 92,020 international students in Texas from October 2025 SEVIS data, and 27,362 OPT participants from Texas institutions in 2024.
7. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Study in the States — the SEVP website the notice names for any later guidance on fee refund adjudications.
8. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(10) — the practical training rules for F-1 students as they currently stand, which this proposal would amend rather than replace.