USCIS Increases Premium Processing Fee – Including for H-1B

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the fee for premium processing has increased, as required by the Counting Appropriations Act and Other Extensions Act, Pub. L. No. 116-159, adopted on October 1, 2020.

According to the new decision, the fee for Form I-907 Request for Premium Processing will increase from $1,440 to $2,500, for all persons except for those who apply for H-2B or R-1 non-immigrant status.

The premium processing fee for petitioners of Form I-129 request H-2B or R-1 non-immigrant status has increased from $1,440 to $1,500, VisaGuide.World reports.

The new changes took effect on October 19, while the changes on the increasing fees for premium processing were introduced by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services on October 16.

“The USCIS premium processing service allows petitioners to pay an additional filing fee to expedite the adjudication of certain petitions within 15 days. The Act included the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act, which requires USCIS to establish and collect additional premium processing fees, and to use those additional funds for expanded purposes,” the statement reads.

According to the statement, if the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services receives a Form I-907 with the wrong filing fee, currently, the Form I-907 will be rejected, and the filing fee will be returned.

At the same time, premium processing services will become available to other immigrant applicants of different categories, including:

• Employment-based non-immigrant petitions which have so far not been subject to premium processing
• Individual employment-based green card petitions (EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3) which haven’t been subject to premium processing either (in particular, the EB-1C executive/managerial immigrant petitions and EB-2 National interest waiver)
• Applications to prolong or switch non-immigrant status
• Applications for employment authorization and other immigration benefit request that USCIS would qualify as appropriate

Last year, USCIS revealed that it planned to increase the fee for visa applicants requesting premium processing for some employment-based petitions. Back then, the US agency stressed that the fee would be increased by about 2.1 per cent, in agreement with the Imitation and Nationality Act.