Recent USCIS Fee Adjustments to Meet Operational Needs
On July 31, 2020, USCIS announced fee adjustments for certain immigration and naturalization filing fees. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a governmental agency that is fully fee-funded, conducted a comprehensive fee review, and “determined that current fees do not recover the cost of providing adjudication and naturalization services. DHS is adjusting USCIS fees by a weighted average increase of 20% to help recover its operational costs. Current fees would leave the agency underfunded by about $1 billion per year.”
Certain other reasons for the fee increases are noted as follows:
- Increased costs to adjudicate immigration benefit requests;
- Detect and deter immigration fraud; and,
- Thoroughly vet applicants, petitioners, and beneficiaries.
The last time USCIS adjusted its fee structure was in December 2016, with an average increase of 20%. This rule and fee adjustment will be effective October 02, 2020, and will be applicable to any application, petition, or request postmarked on or after this date. For a list of fees for all applications and petitions, please visit https://www.uscis.gov/forms/filing-fees.