Effective January 1, 2008, the application fee for a U.S. nonimmigrant visa will increase worldwide from $100 to $131.  The law passed by Congress requires the U.S. State Department to recover the costs of security and other enhancements to the non-immigrant visa application process.  This increase applies both to all types of nonimmigrant visa applications, and to visa applicants in every country in the world.

The State Department is required by law to recover the cost of processing non-immigrant visas through the collection of the Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) application fee. Because of new security-related costs, new information technology systems, and inflation, the $100 fee is lower than the actual cost of processing non-immigrant visas.  In fact, the $100 fee was already lower than the cost of processing non-immigrant visas when the fee was reviewed as a part of the cost of service study in 2004.  The State Department has been absorbing the additional cost.  The application fee has increased twice since the terrorist attacks in September 2001, the last time in 2002.

Applicants who paid the prior $100 application fee before January 1 will be processed only if they are scheduled and appear for a visa interview before January 31.  Applicants who paid the prior $100 application fee and appear for visa interviews after January 31, 2008 must pay the difference -- $31 -- before they will be interviewed.

For more information about U.S. visas, please see: http://www.unitedstatesvisas.gov/