USCIS rejects a filing sent with the wrong fee, and fees now change on fixed schedules. Before filing anything, check the current USCIS fee schedule or fee calculator, and take advice from a US-licensed immigration attorney on your own case.
The National Interest Waiver is one of the few routes to a green card that does not need an employer. That makes it popular with researchers, founders and specialists, and it means the petitioner usually pays every government fee personally. Those fees have changed three times in two and a half years, in ways that are easy to miss, because only one of the changes was a headline fee rule.
What changed, and when
1 April 2024: the fee rule. USCIS’s first full fee rule since 2016 raised the main forms, folded the separate $85 biometrics fee into the application fees, and ended the “bundle” that let green card applicants file a work permit and travel document for free alongside Form I-485. It also created a new Asylum Program Fee, charged on every Form I-140.
26 February 2024 and 1 March 2026: premium processing. The optional fee for a faster decision on Form I-140 went from $2,500 to $2,805, then to $2,965. The second increase was not a new policy decision at all. The USCIS Stabilization Act lets DHS index premium processing to inflation every two years, and this was the index running.
16 October 2026: H.R. 1 inflation adjustments. The 2025 reconciliation law (H.R. 1, Public Law 119-21) created new fees for asylum, parole and Temporary Protected Status, and requires them to rise with inflation every year. The second annual adjustment takes effect on 16 October 2026. It does not touch Form I-140 or Form I-485, but it is the clearest sign yet that some immigration fees now go up every year by law.
Proposed, June 2026: citizenship. DHS has proposed raising the naturalization fee by 75 percent and ending fee waivers for it. That is the fee a green card holder pays at the end of the road, and it is covered below.
The NIW green card bill, line by line
The comparison below is for one person filing an EB-2 NIW self-petition and an adjustment of status together (“concurrent filing”) from inside the United States, on paper, with a work permit and advance parole. The same figures apply to an EB-1A self-petition.
| Form | Before 1 April 2024 | October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| I-140, immigrant petition | $700 | $715 |
| Asylum Program Fee (self-petitioner) | None | $300 |
| I-485, adjustment of status (biometrics included) | $1,225 | $1,440 |
| I-765, work permit with a pending I-485 | Included | $260 |
| I-131, advance parole with a pending I-485 | Included | $630 |
| Total | $1,925 | $3,345 |
| Optional: I-140 premium processing | $2,500 | $2,965 |
That is $1,420 more, an increase of about 74 percent, before anyone has paid for a medical examination, translations or legal help. With premium processing, the government’s share alone goes from $4,425 to $6,310.
Two details catch people out.
The Asylum Program Fee is $300 for a self-petitioner, not $600. The fee schedule charges $600 to regular employer petitioners, $300 to small employers and self-petitioners, and nothing to nonprofits. NIW and EB-1A petitioners file for themselves, so the lower figure applies.
The work permit and travel document are now separate decisions. Under the old bundle they cost nothing, so everyone filed them. At $890 together, applicants who already hold a work visa such as H-1B or L-1 have a real reason to ask their attorney whether they need them at all.
Online filing, where USCIS accepts it for a given form, is usually $50 cheaper per form. Form I-140 is $665 online, for example.
The green card itself is not the expensive part of the government bill. The forms that travel with it now are.
For a family
Each family member applying for permanent residency files their own Form I-485. A spouse filing with a work permit and advance parole paid $1,225 before April 2024 and pays $2,330 now. A child under 14 filing with a parent paid $750 and now pays $950.
For a family of three (the petitioner, a spouse with a work permit and travel document, and a child under 14 with neither), the USCIS bill goes from $3,900 to $6,625. That is about 70 percent more, and still before premium processing.
Why fees keep rising
USCIS is funded almost entirely by the fees it charges, not by congressional appropriations. When a form costs more to decide than its fee brings in, the shortfall is paid by everyone else’s fees. DHS made exactly that argument in its June 2026 naturalization proposal: under-priced forms and fee waivers, it said, had pushed up the fees on other applications. Its stated aim is that each applicant pays the full cost of their own case.
The Asylum Program Fee is the opposite principle at work: a charge on employment-based petitions, including NIW, that funds a different programme. Together, those two ideas explain most of the movement in the table above.
The automatic increases matter more over time. Premium processing now rises with inflation every two years, and the H.R. 1 fees rise every year. For Indian and Chinese NIW petitioners in particular, who often wait years for a priority date before they can file Form I-485, the adjustment fee they eventually pay may be noticeably higher than today’s figure.
After permanent residency: citizenship
Permanent residency is usually not the last application. Most green card holders can apply to naturalise after five years, and the fee for that application, Form N-400, is where the largest proposed increase sits.
The fee was $725 before April 2024, including biometrics, and is $760 on paper or $710 online today. On 23 June 2026, DHS proposed raising it to $1,330 on paper and $1,280 online, removing the reduced fee for lower-income applicants and ending fee waivers for the form. Members of the armed forces applying under the military provisions would remain exempt.
The proposal is not yet law. The comment period closed on 24 August 2026, and the USCIS fee schedule dated 1 October 2026 still lists the current fees. If it is finalised as proposed, one person’s journey from NIW petition to US citizenship would cost $4,675 in USCIS fees alone, up from $2,650 before April 2024.
What it means in practice
A weak petition now costs more to lose. USCIS fees are generally not refundable. If an NIW petition is filed together with the green card applications and the petition is denied, the $2,330 paid for the petitioner’s I-485, work permit and travel document goes with it. The case for getting the petition right first time, with every exhibit tied to the argument it supports, has never been more measurable.
Read the fee schedule’s edition date, not last year’s checklist. USCIS applies the fee in force on the postmark date and rejects a filing with the wrong amount. A rejected package loses its filing date, which can matter far more than the fee.
Watch the naturalization rule. Green card holders already eligible to naturalise, and the attorneys advising them, will want to know when the proposal becomes final, because the fee that applies is the one in force when the application is filed.
None of this changes the strength of an NIW case, which still turns on the three Matter of Dhanasar prongs. It changes what a mistake costs. At Lexverse, we draft NIW and EB-1A petitions for US immigration attorneys to review and sign, built so that every claim is mapped to its evidence before the argument is written. That is the work.
Sources
- USCIS Form G-1055, Fee Schedule, edition dated 1 October 2026
- USCIS: premium processing fee increase effective 1 March 2026
- USCIS: FY 2027 inflation increase for certain immigration fees, effective 16 October 2026
- Federal Register: Naturalization Application Fee Adjustments, proposed rule, 23 June 2026
Lexverse Legal is a legal support and paralegal services company, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Fees are government filing fees only and exclude medical examinations, translations and legal fees. Figures assume paper filing unless stated.