USA Green Card Immigration Blog

On May 20, 2010, the Department of State has made a temporary announcement that the processing fees for the non-immigrant visa application will be increased. The increase in the processing fees, which is also referred to as the Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) fee, and Border Crossing Card (BBC) fees, will take effect from June 4.

The US non-immigrant visa fee has been increased by the Department of State in order to completely cover the cost of processing non-immigrant visas, which is on the rise. The processing fees for issuing both nonimmigrant visas that are placed in passports and border crossing cards that are provided to applicants in Mexico have been increased.

Certain categories of non-immigrant visas are more complicated than others, thus requiring higher unit costs for their processing. The new fee structure was framed to make up for this rising processing cost. The processing cost of non-immigrant visas should be recovered by the Department of State through the fund derived from the application fees. The US non-immigrant visa fee, which was fixed previously as $131 does not cover the present cost of non-immigrant visas processing.

All the visas that are not petition-based, including B1/B2 visitor visas and all student visas will be charged a processing fee of $140, as per the newly framed fee structure. Rest of the applicants who are applying for petition-based visas, including H visa, L visa, O visa, P visa, Q visa, and R visa will be charged a processing fee of $150. Applicants for K visas are obliged to pay an application processing fee of $350, while E visa applicants will be charged 390$.

Along with the interim final rule, the Department will simultaneously publish the additional cost of service data. The public comment period will be re-opened for an additional period of 60 days. The Department will take the public comments into consideration once the 60-days period comes to an end and announce the final rule on the US non-immigrant visa fee.

The Department of State, on December 14, 2009, published a proposed rule to increase the U.S non-immigration visa application fees, also called as the Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) fee and Border Crossing Card (BCC) fees. The non-immigration visa application fees have been raised from its current $131 to $140 and the immigration rule is published in the Federal Register. The proposed rule will bring a layered structure with separate fees based upon the visa category.

The proposed new non-immigration visa application fees are meant to cover the cost of processing non-immigrant visas and border crossing cards. Border crossing cards are issued to certain adult applicants in Mexico. Basically this proposal is initiated to overpower the growing cost of processing non-immigrant visas (NIVs). Some of the categories of non-immigrant visas are very intricate that need profound consideration than other categories of non-immigrant visas, resulting in higher costs.

Under the newly proposed immigration rule, the following visa categories will pay the new non-immigration visa application fees that include

• E (treaty trader and investor)

• H (temporary worker or trainee)

• K (fiancé(e))

• L (Intracompany transferee)

• O (alien with extraordinary ability)

• P (athlete, artist or entertainer)

• Q (international cultural exchange visitors)

• R (religious worker).

Visas that are not petition-based, such as B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas and all student and exchange-visitor visas are required to pay a fee of $140. Petition-based visas would pay $150 for an application. This category includes 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, and R visa for religious occupations. The K and E visa applications will cost $350 and $390 respectively.

The new immigration rule regarding the U.S non-immigrant visa application fees will come into effect only after the Department of State considering public comments.