Press Releases

Application Fees for U.S. Non-Immigrant Visas to Increase worldwide

December 19, 2007
No. 2007/86

Effective January 1, 2008, the application fee for a U.S. nonimmigrant visa will increase worldwide from $100 to $131. This increase allows the Department to recover the costs of security and other enhancements to the non-immigrant visa application process. This increase applies both to non-immigrant visas issued on machine-readable foils in passports and to border crossing cards issued to certain applicants in Mexico.

Applicants who paid the prior $100 application fee before January 1 will be processed only if they are scheduled and appear for a visa interview before January 31. Applicants who paid the prior $100 application fee and appear for visa interviews after January 31, 2008 must pay the difference -- $31 -- before they will be interviewed.

Because of new security-related costs, new information technology systems, and inflation, the $100 Machine-Readable Visa fee is lower than the actual cost of processing non-immigrant visas. In fact, the $100 fee was already lower than the cost of processing non-immigrant visas when the fee was reviewed as a part of the cost of service study in 2004. The State Department has been absorbing the additional cost. The application fee has increased twice since September 9/11, the last time in 2002 because of the cost required by the FBI to collect fingerprints from each applicant.

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