Notable Fee Increases at US Citizenship & Immigration Services

Money, money, money . . . it’s going to cost you. In August, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule that includes significant changes to the fee schedule for US Citizenship & Services (USCIS).

This final DHS rule, which takes effect on October 2, 2020, will not only drastically change the filing fees for certain immigration benefits, including immigrant and nonimmigrant petitions and applications, but also mandates the release of new versions of some USCIS forms. In order to determine the new fee schedule, USCIS conducted a biennial fee review and concluded that the current fee structure did not recover the cost of providing its services. Based on this review, DHS is adjusting USCIS fees by a weighted average increase of 20% to help recover these costs.

The new fee schedule, which applies to applications and petitions received by USCIS on or after October 2, 2020, has some notable breaks from the prior fee schedules, including changing the I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, filing fee from the universal $460.00 USD regardless of the nonimmigrant category to varied fees per nonimmigrant category.

The following popular petitions and applications are impacted:

• $555.00 USD filing fee (20% increase) for I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, for H-1B category:
• $805.00 USD filing fee (75% increase) for I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, for L-1A and L-1B categories:
• $695.00 USD filing fee (51% increase) for I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, for TN, E-1, E-2, and E-3 categories:
• $1,130.00 USD filing fee (51% increase) for I-485, Applications to Register or Adjust Status (for children under 14 years old);
• $550.00 USD filing fee (34% increase) for I-765, Application for Employment Authorization; and
• $1,170.00 USD filing fee (83% increase) for N-400, Application for Naturalization.

Furthermore, while USCIS did not increase the filing fee for its premium processing services, the same $1440.00 USD fee will no longer guarantee adjudication within fifteen (15) calendar days but will instead now be fifteen (15) business days. While the fee is not increasing, we will just get less for our money.

As always, our immigration team at Moodys Tax will continue to monitor and update our clients, business partners, and connections.