New Immigration and Naturalization Fee Structure to Take Effect April 2024

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on January 30 published a final rule to adjust fees for certain immigration and naturalization benefit requests. This change, the first since 2016, aims to help the agency recover a greater share of its operational costs and facilitate more efficient processing of new applications.

The decision follows a comprehensive fee review as mandated by law, building upon a notice of proposed rulemaking published in January 2023, USCIS said. The review highlighted the current fee schedule's inadequacy in covering the full cost of agency operations, including the expansion of humanitarian programs, federally mandated pay raises, staffing requirements, and other crucial investments.

USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou emphasized the importance of this update, stating, “For the first time in over seven years, USCIS is updating our fees to better meet the needs of our agency, enabling us to provide more timely decisions to those we serve.” She praised the USCIS workforce for its customer service improvements and backlog reduction despite years of inadequate funding.