United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a new fee schedule that will take effect on April 1, 2024, substantially increasing filing fees for employment-based cases. These new fees will apply to all cases postmarked April 1, 2024, or later. The new fees include the following important changes:
- Employers will need to pay an additional “Asylum Fee” with every I-129 and I-140. For non-profits and employers with 25 or fewer employees, the asylum fee will be $300 per application. For all other employers, the fee will be $600.
- Applicants will now have to pay separate fees for work and travel authorization requests filed with adjustment of status applications. However, adjustment applicants who file Form I-765 with a concurrent or pending Form I-485 will only pay half of the filing fee.
- Premium processing will now be counted in business days, rather than calendar days. This will mean that the standard nonimmigrant premium processing time of 15 days will increase from approximately two weeks to approximately three weeks. For those matters that have a 45-day premium processing time (e.g. National Interest Waivers, EB-1C Multinational Managers), the processing time will increase from approximately 6 weeks to 9 weeks
- H-1B lottery registration fee will increase from $10 to $215 but will not apply to this registration period beginning March 6, 2024. The registration fee will remain at $10 for the FY 2025 lottery.
- Effective February 26, 2024, premium processing fees will increase from $2,500 to $2,805. These changes apply to premium processing requests received on or after February 26.
Filing Fee Changes:
