USCIS Fee Increase Effective as of April 1, 2024
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has promulgated a final rule, set to take effect on April 1, 2024. Seeking to offset the costs to process an increasing number of humanitarian applications, the fees for most employment-based applications will increase, some significantly.
Some notable changes:
For many applications, USCIS has tiered fees including for whether an employer is a nonprofit, or a small employer (25 or fewer Full-Time-Equivalent Employees).
USCIS has expanded (although not dramatically) the types of cases that may now be filed online.
This expansion of online filing notably, now includes Forms I-129 for H-1B submissions.
To incentivize online filing, USCIS is reducing by $50 filing fees for online filed cases.
To offset humanitarian cases, USCIS will now be applying a supplemental “asylum fee” to all employment based applications including H-1B, L-1, O-1 and I-140 submissions. This supplemental fee will be $300 for small employers and $600 for larger employers per case.
USCIS is also amending many key employment-based forms such as the Form I-129 (for H-1B, L-1, and O-1 petitions) and the Form I-140. Many form revisions will have no grace period, so that they will be published no earlier than April 1, 2024 and are in immediate effect (no earlier versions accepted).
Some USCIS filing locations will change as of April 1, 2024.
For further information please see USCIS Issues Final Rule to Adjust Certain Immigration and Naturalization Fees | USCIS and Frequently Asked Questions on the USCIS Fee Rule | USCIS or contact our office at any time.