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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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The Trump administration has announced updated fees for fast-track processing of several visa applications, including the H-1B and student visas.
In an announcement Friday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it was increasing the costs for applications because of inflation—a reasoning given for other recent fee increases.
Why It Matters
Known as premium processing, the additional application fees give immigrants the option to speed up their work authorizations, sometimes to within 15 days. Fee changes or updates are nothing new, with USCIS mainly funded through the payments it collects from applicants.
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What To Know
USCIS said Friday that it was changing the premium processing fees for the following application forms.
Among the I-129 work-based visa forms seeing increased fees were those for H-1B visas, as well as the L visa category for internal company transfers of executives and managers.
O-1 visas, for applicants viewed as having exceptional abilities, and P visas, for athletes and performers, will also see premium processing fees rise, as will form I-539 for student visas and form I-765 for STEM-OPT training visas for those international students.
Overall, fees will rise between roughly $50 and $100, USCIS figures showed.
Premium processing also has to be requested and is not the default when applying for the visas. USCIS says its agents will seek to review cases within 15 to 45 business days–far faster than many wait times regular applicants experience.
The program, which has slowly expanded to cover the above categories, has been criticized at times for allowing wealthier applicants to skip the line, with some feeling this only adds to the agency's backlog that can see applications sitting with officers for months, even years, because of the sheer number of cases to adjudicate.
The additional revenue from the 2026 increase will be used to make improvements to the adjudication process, aid in efforts to address the agency’s large backlog of cases, and fund naturalization and adjudication services.
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What People Are Saying
USCIS, in its announcement: “Fees will continue to be adjusted agencywide to account for inflation and protect the real dollar value of the premium processing service we provide.”
What Happens Next
The new fees will go into effect on March 1. Other fee increases, linked to asylum, Temporary Protected Status and work permits, have already gone into effect.
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