There has recently been a flurry of new Federal Register notices issued by U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) relating to fees and reimbursements for a myriad of visa programs. The H-2A and H-2B visa programs have not been immune from these changes.

First, there has been an increase in the daily subsistence rate workers receive for the cost of meals while traveling to and from the place of employment and the place from which the worker has come to work for the employer. Previously, the minimum daily subsistence amount had been $15.46 per day. As of February 13, 2024, this amount is now $15.88 per day. The maximum daily subsistence amount, available with documentation of actual expenses, remains at $59 per day. For the H-2A program, where an employer chooses to provide meals instead of cooking facilities, the maximum amount the employer may charge workers for providing three meals per day is the same rate, which is now $15.88 per day. The USDOL bases the calculation on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for Food (CPI-U for Food).

Second, the premium processing fee at USCIS that is available for an H-2B visa filing increased on February 26, 2024. Previously, this amount had been $1,500, and this has now increased to $1,685. USCIS bases the increase on the CPI-U (which is a measure of inflation).

Last but not least, USCIS announced a change in fee structure that will add an entirely new fee for H-2A and H-2B filers submitting an application on or after April 1, 2024. The new fee is an Asylum Program Fee the agency is instituting in order to “fund the cost of fairly and efficiently adjudicating immigration benefit requests, including those provided without charge to refugee, asylum, and certain other applicants or petitioners.”

The I-129 filing fee itself will increase for H-2B and H-2A applications for unnamed beneficiary petitions from 0% to 26%. However, a separate fee increase has been included for named beneficiary petitions, which increases the I-129 filing fee by 17% to 137%, depending largely on whether the employer is considered a small employer/nonprofit or not. A small employer petitioner is considered to have 25 or fewer full-time equivalent employees.