Premium Processing Fee Increases

On Wednesday, September 30, U.S. Congress passed, and the President signed into law the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act which provided for new and increased premium processing fees coupled with an authorized expansion of the case types eligible for premium processing.  This past Friday, October 16, USCIS announced partial implementation of the law. As a reminder, the premium processing services allows employers to pay an additional filing fee to expedite the adjudication of certain immigration requests, generally within 15 days.

Beginning Monday, October 19, premium processing will increase from $1,440 to $2,500. At UT Health San Antonio, as of today, this impacts premium processing requests for those in H-1B, O-1, TN status, along with those requests for employment-based permanent residency. If you have submitted a packet to our office and included a check for $1,440, we will return the check to you and discuss with you whether or not the $2,500 premium processing fee is still recommended.

As of now, the other USCIS form filing fees have remained the same, as a U.S. district court preliminarily enjoined DHS from implementing other filing fee increases. We will let you know if and when that changes. The filing fees for the H-1B remain at $460 and $500, and the I-140 remains at $700 for the time being.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we navigate rapidly changing immigration rules. Feel free to forward this email to other department contacts, including department chairs or faculty sponsors, as you deem appropriate. We will be updating our forms once again, but we are here to answer any questions you have.

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