USCIS To Raise Filing Fees

October 24, 2016

Starting on December 23, 2016, USCIS will be raising fees on many commonly-used applications and petitions, including H-1B petitions (Form I-129), I-130 petitions, I-140 petitions, green card applications (Form I-485), Naturalization applications (Form N-400), and applications for Travel Documents (Form I-131) and Employment Authorization (Form I-765), among many others. In most instances, these new fees are substantially (i.e. 20-50%) higher than in the past.

Please see below for a complete list of the changes:

december-2016-uscis-fee-update

Periodic fee increases are a downside of the fact that USCIS’s operating budget comes almost entirely from the fees it collects. The upside is that USCIS is among the branches of government that can largely continue operating in the midst of a government shutdown, the likes of which we’ve seen more and more in the past few years.


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