Business Immigration Insights

On January 31, 2024, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) published a final rule to adjust certain immigration and naturalization benefit request fees, effective April 1, 2024. Employers will see significant increases on the fees they pay to submit petitions for workers and to sponsor employees for permanent residence. The agency stated that the fee increases will “…allow USCIS to recover a greater share of its operating costs and support more timely processing of new applications.” This is the first major adjustment in USCIS filing fees since 2016. Notably, the Service is implementing different fees for each type of visa classification sought on Form I‑129 nonimmigrant worker petition, replacing the uniform $460 Form I‑129 filing fee across all classifications. 

On October 24, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) published a rule in the Federal Register establishing a new filing fee structure for applications and petitions processed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency almost entirely funded by petition and application filing fees.  In announcing the new fee structure, DHS explained that the prior fees no longer recovered the cost of services provided and that the new fee structure was necessary to fully recover costs and maintain adequate service. The new few structure increases filing fees by an average of 20%.