U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a final rule to adjust certain immigration and naturalization benefit request fees for the first time since 2016. USCIS reports that the final rule will allow the agency to recover a greater share of its operating costs and support more timely processing of new applications.
The new fees under the final rule will go into effect on April 1, 2024.
USCIS encourages stakeholders to visit the Frequently Asked Questions page on its website to view a full list of the revised forms that will go into effect on April 1, 2024, along with the new fees. USCIS will accept prior editions of most forms during a grace period from April 1, 2024, through June 3, 2024. During this grace period, USCIS will accept both previous and new editions of certain forms, filed with the correct fee.
Some of the updated fees include the following:
Nonprofits and small employers (25 or fewer full-time equivalent employees) filing Form I-129 will pay a 50% discounted fee (or the same fee as under the previous fee rule, if 50% of the standard new fee would be less than the previous fee).
There will be a $50 discount for forms filed online with USCIS, except in limited circumstances.
USCIS also announced a final rule that will increase the filing fee for Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing, to adjust for inflation. The fee change will go into effect on February 26, 2024.
It is interesting to note that in August 2020, USCIS published the 2020 final fee rule, with an effective date of October 2, 2020, to adjust the USCIS fee schedule and make changes to certain other immigration benefit request requirements. On September 29, 2020, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted a motion for a preliminary injunction of the 2020 fee rule in its entirety and stayed the final rule’s effective date. On October 8, 2020, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia also granted a motion for a preliminary injunction and stay of the effective date of the final rule.
USCIS subsequently issued a notification on January 29, 2021, to inform the public of the two preliminary injunctions and it continues to comply with the terms of those orders and is not enforcing the regulatory changes set out in the 2020 fee rule.