Immigration Law

Proposal to Increase Non-Immigrant Visa Application Fees

By Robert Kraft

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) published a proposed rule today to increase the non-immigrant visa (NIV) application processing fees, also called Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) and Border Crossing Card (BCC) fees. The increase would apply to NIV in passports and to BCC issued to applicants in Mexico.
 
The rule proposes to increase the fee for visas that are not petition-based from $131 to $140. Examples of non-petition based visas are B-1/B-2 tourist visas, F-1 student visas. Petition-based visas would increase their application fees to $150. Petition-based visas include H visa for temporary workers, L visa for intracompany transferees, O visa for extraordinary ability, P for athletes, artists and entertainers, Q visa for international cultural exchange visitors, R visa for religious workers. K visas for fiancés would increase to $350 and E visas for treaty-traders and treaty-investors would increase to $390.
 
It is important to note the DOS has only proposed the new rule. Only when the DOS publishes the final rule will the changes become effective.  

Full post as published by Immigration Law Answers Blog on December 14, 2009 (boomark / email).