Washington D.C., August 3, 2020: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is going to increase visa application fees on October 2, 2020 by significant amounts. Employers seeking work visas, families seeking reunification visas, and even asylum seekers will be impacted.

Among the most notable changes:

• The basic fee for L visa petitions to transfer senior employees within the same group of companies increases to $805 (from $460; 75% increase).
• Waiver of unlawful presence filed on Form I-601A increases to $960 (from $630; 52% increase).
• Work permits based on another visa status, such as H4 work authorizations for spouses, is going to increase to $550 (from $410; 34% increase).

Perhaps most controversially, USCIS is nearly doubling the cost to green card holders seeking to become naturalized U.S. citizens. The fees for Form N400 Application for Naturalization will increase to $1,160 (if filed electronically) and $1,170 (if filed on paper format). These fees represent an approximately 80% increase over existing fees. Naturalization is only available to green card holders who have lived in the US for at least 5 years (lowered to 3 years for spouses of US citizens).

Among the few bright spots in the USCIS fee plans:

• Work-based green card petitions filed on Form I-140 is going down to $555 (from $700; 21% decrease).
• Biometrics fees for N400 Naturalizations and other applications (except DACA) decrease to $30 (from 85%; 65% decrease).

The full Final Rule for new USCIS fees is found below: https://www.uscis.gov/.

Donoso & Partners, a leading immigration law firm based in Washington, D.C., will continue to report on developments regarding the immigration law and policy through our news section of donosolaw.com.