US has announced that it will increase the fee of issuing non-immigrant visas in all categories with effect from June four so as to meet its increasing processing cost.
"The Department is increasing fees to ensure sufficient resources to cover the rising cost of processing non-immigrant visas," the State Department said in a statement.
For a number of reasons, including new security enhancements, the $ 131 fee set on January 1, 2008 no longer covers the current, actual cost of processing non-immigrant visas, it added.
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 $ 140, the State Department said.
Applicants for petition-based visas will pay an application fee of $ 150.
These categories include: H visa for temporary workers and trainees; L visa for intra-company transferees; O visa for aliens with extraordinary ability; P visa for athletes, artists and entertainers; Q visa for international cultural exchange visitors and R visa for religious occupations.
The application fee for K visas for fiance(e)s of US citizens will be $ 350.
{{/usCountry}}The application fee for K visas for fiance(e)s of US citizens will be $ 350.
{{/usCountry}}The fee for E visas for treaty-traders and treaty-investors will be $ 390, the State Department said.
"The new, tiered fee structure was created to cover the higher unit costs for processing certain categories of non-immigrant visas that are more complicated and require more in-depth consideration than most other categories of non-immigrant visas," the statement said.
The State Department is required to recover, as far as possible, the cost of processing non-immigrant visas through the collection of the application fees.