Nonimmigrant visa application fees increase as of June 4
Blame inflation, but it’s getting more expensive to apply for a nonimmigrant visa.
Nonimmigrant visa application fees — also called Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) and Border Crossing Card (BCC) fees — have increased as of June 4 to cover the cost of processing them. This increase applies both to nonimmigrant visas placed in passports and to border crossing cards issued to certain applicants in Mexico.
The new, tiered fee structure was created because certain categories of nonimmigrant visas are more complicated and require more in-depth consideration than others. The U.S. State Department is required to recover, as far as possible, the cost of processing nonimmigrant visas through the collection of the application fees. For a number of reasons, including new security enhancements, the US$131 fee set on Jan. 1, 2008 no longer covers the current, actual cost of processing nonimmigrant visas.
Under the new schedule of fees, applicants for all visas that are not petition-based, including B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas and all student and exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas, will pay a fee of US$140.
Applicants for petition-based visas will pay an application fee of US$150. These categories include:
- 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
- R visa for religious occupations
The application fee for K visas for fiance(e)s of U.S. citizens will be $350. The fee for E visas for treaty-traders and treaty-investors will be $390.
