US increases visa application fee

Washington, May 25: United States has declared that it will increase the non-immigrant-visa fee in all categories with effect from Jun 4 as a means to meet the increasing processing cost.

“The Department is increasing fees to ensure sufficient resources to cover the rising cost of processing non-immigrant visas," informed the State Department.

The fee of $131 which was set on Jan 1, 2008, no longer covers the current actual cost of processing non-immigrant visas including new security enhancements, informed the US authorities.

Under the new rule, applicants for all visas which are not petition-based, will have to pay a fee of $140. This include B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas, all student and exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas.

The fees for petition-based visas will be $150. This include H visa for temporarty workers and trainees, L visa for intra-

company transferees, O visa for aliens with extraordinary ability, P visa for athlets, artists and entertainers, Q visa for international cultural exchange visitors and R visa for the religious occupations.

K visa fee for fiance(e)s of US citizens will be $350.

E visas for treaty-traders and treatey-investors will cost the fee of $390, informed the State Department.

US authorities said that the State Department has to recover the cost of processing non-immigrant visas through the collection of application fees.

OneIndia News