USCIS Announces Premium Processing Fee Increase Effective October 19; Planned Premium Processing Expansions Remain Pending
On October 16th, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it was increasing the fee for Premium Processing, effective almost immediately.
Current Changes
In accordance with the accordance with the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act, Pub. L. No. 116-159, signed into law on Oct. 1, the Premium Processing fees for currently designated case types increase from $1,440 to $2,500 (except for H-2B and R-1 visa petitions, which increase to $1,500). Any Premium Processing requests postmarked on or after Monday, October 19 must include the new fee.
Future Changes
The Act also requires USCIS to implement by regulation a Premium Processing fee for additional case types, including:
- Form I-129 employment-based nonimmigrant petitions;
- Most Form I-140 immigrant petitions;
- Form I-539 applications to change or extend nonimmigrant status; and
- Form I-765 employment authorization applications.
The new law allows USCIS to set new Premium Processing fees without going through the normal regulatory process within these future expanded categories. To date, USCIS has not announced when it will offer Premium Processing to these additional case types.
A summary of the future designated Premium Processing case types are listed below:
|
Case Types |
Premium Processing Fee |
Proposed Processing Time |
|
Immigrant petitions for multinational manager/executive transferees (EB-1C) and national interest waivers (certain EB-2 filings) |
$2,500 |
45 days |
|
Applications to change nonimmigrant visa status to F, M, or J |
$1,750 |
30 days |
|
Applications for E, H, L, O, P, and R derivatives |
$1,750 |
30 days |
|
Employment authorization document applications |
$1,500 |
30 days |
USCIS will continue to have the authority to suspend Premium Processing services, though this authority will be limited to instances where USCIS cannot complete a “significant number” of premium requests within the required time period.
For more information, please contact your Mintz attorney.