USA - Nonimmigrant Visa Application Fees to Increase from June

The Department of State published an interim final rule in the Federal Register on May 20, 2010 to increase nonimmigrant visa application processing fees, also called the Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) fee, and Border Crossing Card (BCC) fees.

The Department is increasing fees to ensure sufficient resources to cover the rising cost of processing nonimmigrant visas. This increase applies both to nonimmigrant visas placed in passports and to border crossing cards issued to certain applicants in Mexico.

The new, tiered fee structure was created to cover the higher unit costs for processing certain categories of nonimmigrant visas that are more complicated and require more in-depth consideration than most other categories of nonimmigrant visas. The Department is required to recover, as far as possible, the cost of processing nonimmigrant visas through the collection of the application fees. For a number of reasons, including new security enhancements, the $131 fee set on January 1, 2008 no longer covers the current, actual cost of processing nonimmigrant visas.

Under the new schedule of fees, applicants for all visas that are not petition-based, including B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas and all student and exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas, will pay a fee of $140.

Applicants for petition-based visas will pay an application fee of $150.

These categories include:

    * H visa for temporary workers and trainees
    * L visa for intracompany transferees
    * O visa for aliens with extraordinary ability
    * P visa for athletes, artists and entertainers
    * Q visa for international cultural exchange visitors
    * R visa for religious occupations

The application fee for K visas for fiancé(e)s of U.S. citizens will be $350. The fee for E visas for treaty-traders and treatyinvestors will be $390.

Concurrent with the publication of the interim final rule, the Department will also release additional cost of service data and re-open the public comment period for an additional 60 days. At the conclusion of that period, the Department will consider public comments and publish a final rule.