Legislative lowdown: Employers will be charged more to sponsor visas in 2024

Filing fees for many employment-based visas will go up on April 1, 2024, according to a final rule recently published by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). It’s the first time the agency has raised fees since 2016.

US employers are often, though not always, on the hook for paying visa filing fees to sponsor foreign-born workers. Employers must pay filing fees when petitioning for H-1B visas, for example, which are typically granted to college-educated workers in specialty occupations. The same is true for L-1 visas, which allow employees to temporarily transfer to the US to work on special projects for their company.

The price tag to petition for both of those visas and a number of others will rise this spring, according to the new USCIS rule. In a statement announcing the new fee schedule, the agency noted that “unlike many other federal agencies,” USCIS receives 96% of its funding from filing fees, and only about 4% from Congress.

Which visas are getting pricier? Among the fee changes announced by the USCIS are the following:

• H-1B visa filing fees will go up 70%, from $460 to $780.
• L-1 visa filing fees will rise by 201%, from $460 to $1,385.
• E, TN, H-3, P, Q, and R visas cover a range of foreign workers, including certain professionals from Canada and Mexico, and specialty occupation workers from Australia. The filing fees for those visas will go up 121%, from $460 to $1,015.
• Employers who file forms I-129 or I-140 to sponsor foreign workers will be subject to a new $600 “Asylum Program Fee,” according to the new rule. This is intended to cover some of the costs associated with asylum processing.

The USCIS carved out exceptions for small employers (25 or fewer employees) or nonprofit organizations. These employers may see smaller fee hikes for these visas, or no change whatsoever in the cost to file a petition. The asylum program fee is $300 for small employers, and no cost to nonprofits.

Zoom out. The share of foreign-born workers in the US labor force rose faster than the share of native-born workers in 2022, and some industries are heavily dependent on certain types of visas to source talent. Tech companies like Infosys, Google, and Meta, for example, were some of the top employers petitioning for H-1B visas in 2022, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

Employers who sponsor foreign-born workers should consider the impact this new fee schedule will have on their budgets, attorneys with law firm Seyfarth wrote in a Feb. 1 blog post. Organizations may also consider submitting cases “before April 1 to benefit from the current fee structure and form editions,” they wrote.