The PARTNERS Act: Half of H-1B Fees Redirected to Fund New Apprenticeship Grants for Small Businesses

The new PARTNERS Act (officially the Promoting Apprenticeships through Regional Training Networks for Employers Required Skills Act of 2025) is a major push to expand registered apprenticeships and other paid, on-the-job training programs. The big takeaway is that it creates a whole new grant system to funnel money directly to local and regional industry partnerships—think groups of businesses, schools, and workforce agencies—specifically targeting high-demand sectors and small-to-medium sized businesses. The goal is simple: get more workers trained and placed in jobs where they’re actually needed, with the expectation of a long-term job waiting at the end.

Where the Money Comes From (and Who Pays)

This new program doesn’t rely on general taxes; it sets up a dedicated funding stream. The Secretary of Labor will pull money from an existing Treasury account (Section 286(s)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act). But the most significant change is tucked away in Section 9, which acts as a permanent funding mechanism: 50 percent of the money collected through the H1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Account must now be set aside and reserved for activities authorized under this PARTNERS Act. This is a massive earmark, ensuring a steady, dedicated stream of funding for these apprenticeship programs. While this secures the program’s future, it’s worth noting that it diverts half of those fees away from whatever other uses they previously had, potentially impacting other immigration services or accounts.

The State-to-Partnership Pipeline

Once the funds are collected, they are allotted to states based on a modified version of the existing WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) formula. To get their share, states must submit detailed applications (Section 5) outlining which in-demand industries they will target, how they will involve small businesses, and, crucially, how they will serve populations with barriers to employment. This means if you’re a state workforce board, you have a lot of new application and reporting homework to do.

From there, the states must turn around and award grants of up to $500,000 to the local industry partnerships they identified. The state must ensure these grants are geographically diverse across the state, which is good news for rural areas often overlooked in these programs (Section 6).

Real-World Benefits for Workers and Businesses

For businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, the grants are designed to cover the costs that often make apprenticeships too much of a lift. Partnerships can use the money to help a small manufacturer register as an official apprenticeship sponsor, design the curriculum, or even pay for a worker during a trial employment period before they are officially hired (Section 7). This essentially subsidizes the risk of training new employees.

For the worker, the bill mandates that the grants fund crucial support services. This includes connecting individuals with basic education classes, mentoring, and covering costs for things like tools or work clothes. However, there’s a tight restriction here: the grant can only spend a maximum of 5 percent of the total funds on essential services like transportation and childcare (Section 7). For a parent relying on public transit or juggling childcare costs, a 5% cap might not be enough to make the program accessible, which could be a significant barrier to entry, especially for the very populations the bill aims to help.

Accountability is Key (and Complex)

This program comes with strict homework. Local partnerships must evaluate their performance annually and report the results to the state, and the state then reports to the Secretary of Labor (Section 8). This reporting must be incredibly detailed, showing performance levels for all workers in the program and, separately, for individuals with barriers to employment. Furthermore, they must break down all this data by race, ethnicity, sex, and age. This level of demographic reporting is intended to ensure transparency and accountability, ensuring the money is actually reaching underrepresented groups, but it also means a heavy administrative burden for the local workforce boards handling the paperwork.