USCIS fee schedule 2025: Understanding immigration filing fees

For immigration attorneys, staying current on USCIS filing fees is essential to providing accurate guidance and helping clients avoid unnecessary delays. Filing costs can play a significant role in how individuals and families budget for the legal process—and when payments are incorrect or incomplete, applications are often rejected outright.

In October 2025, USCIS issued a revised immigration fee schedule that increased the cost to file many commonly used immigration forms. Some of the changes are modest, while others reflect more substantial increases that impact both employment- and family-based filings.

This article provides a detailed breakdown of the current USCIS fee schedule, along with practical strategies for managing firm and client expenses. You'll also find tips for reducing the risk of payment-related delays and ensuring your internal processes stay aligned with evolving USCIS requirements. 

Whether you're advising clients on costs or tracking expenses across multiple matters, this guide is designed to help you stay organized and compliant.

Breaking down the USCIS filing fee schedule

USCIS publishes its official filing fees in a document called Form G-1055, also known as the USCIS fee schedule. While the name might sound like a timeline or calendar, the schedule is actually a comprehensive list of government filing fees for immigration-related applications, petitions, and requests.

The latest edition of the USCIS fee schedule, released on October 16, 2025, outlines the most up-to-date fee amounts for hundreds of forms used by attorneys and applicants. To avoid delays or rejected filings, it’s critical to check the fee schedule each time you prepare a submission, especially in a year when fees have been updated.

You can download the full fee schedule here.

Current USCIS filing fee schedule reference guide

Below is a quick-reference table of filing fees for common USCIS forms as of October 2025. This list is not exhaustive, but it includes many of the forms immigration attorneys handle most often. 

The figures listed in this table represent the standard USCIS fees for most filers, but fee amounts often vary by petitioner category, submission method, and other factors. Additional fees may apply in certain cases, and some fees may be reduced or waived. Consult Form G-1055 for detailed information.

What’s behind the 2025 USCIS filing fee increases

USCIS operates largely on a fee-funded model, with about 96% of its budget coming from the filing fees paid by applicants rather than congressional appropriations. The agency periodically adjusts these fees through the federal rulemaking process. 

While the timeline for these changes isn’t fixed, USCIS is required by law to regularly assess whether fees adequately cover operational costs such as staffing, case processing, and technology upgrades. 

USCIS last implemented a major update to the fee schedule in 2016, increasing fees by an average of 21%. In 2020, the agency proposed a new fee rule that was later blocked in federal court and did not take effect. Another update was introduced in 2024 but was subsequently replaced by the 2025 USCIS fee schedule.

While USCIS cites rising caseloads and administrative costs as justification for the latest increases, political priorities have also shaped the agency’s funding model. During the Trump administration, USCIS has implemented several policy changes that reduced certain visa categories and increased scrutiny of applications.

Here are some of the most notable changes included in the 2025 USCIS fee updates:

• New charges now apply to applications that were previously free, including $100 for asylum filings, an annual $100 for pending asylum cases, and $250 for Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions.

• Applicants for work permits tied to asylum, parole, or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) must pay $550 for an initial Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and $275 for renewals.

• Several existing fees rose sharply, such as humanitarian parole filings increasing from $630 to $1,000 (59%) and TPS registration jumping from $50 to $500 (900%).

• The cost of a green card for asylees increased from $1,140 to $1,500 (32%), while appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals jumped from $110 to $900 (718%).

While fee waivers and exemptions remain available for some individuals and humanitarian cases, they will be granted on a more limited basis going forward, and many waivers have been eliminated altogether. 

Immigration attorneys must remain vigilant in tracking fee changes to avoid delays or denials due to incorrect payments.

How to avoid payment rejections and delays

Even minor issues with fee payments can cause USCIS to reject an otherwise complete filing. For law firms managing multiple filings on tight timelines, it is essential to prevent these kinds of errors.

Some of the most common reasons USCIS rejects payments include:

• Submitting the wrong fee amount

• Using an outdated version of a form

• Entering incorrect account or card information

• Exceeding a card’s daily transaction limit

• Failing to include required supplemental fees (like biometric or asylum-related surcharges)

These issues are avoidable with the right systems in place. Verifying fees and client payment details in advance, confirming bank card limits, and using checklists to ensure all documentation is complete can help attorneys stay on schedule and serve their clients well.

Double-check the USCIS fee schedule before filing

Paying the wrong fee is one of the most common causes of rejected filings. USCIS fees can vary based on the applicant’s status, eligibility category, and whether the form is submitted online or by mail. Always confirm the current fee for each form on the official G-1055 fee schedule before submitting payments.

Paying the wrong amount will almost always result in the entire application being rejected—even if the rest of the paperwork is accurate.

Verify account and card details carefully

Many USCIS filing issues stem from small, easy-to-miss mistakes related to payment methods—like an expired credit card, an incorrect CVV code, or a mistyped routing number. These minor errors can lead to failed transactions and delayed filings.

Before submitting a payment, take a moment to verify the following:

• The transaction won’t exceed the card’s daily spending limit

• The card is not expired

• You have entered the correct CVV code

• ACH details (if used) match the correct routing and account numbers

Using a centralized immigration tracking system to securely assign and manage payment methods by case can further reduce the risk of errors.

Train staff to prevent clerical errors 

USCIS also frequently rejects applications due to clerical errors that occur when preparing documents for filing. A missing signature or incorrectly completed form can be enough for USCIS to reject an application submitted in an otherwise meritorious case..

Immigration firms—especially those that regularly submit high volumes of forms—should invest time in:

• Creating and maintaining detailed pre-filing checklists

• Training administrative staff on updated USCIS protocols

• Conducting a final review before any payment or package is submitted

Building consistency into this part of the process can save considerable time, money, and client trust over the long run.

Understanding the new USCIS rule mandating electronic payments

In October 2025, USCIS began requiring electronic payments of immigration filing fees for most applications—paper checks and money orders are generally no longer accepted. To comply with the new USCIS fee payment requirements, filers must use one of the following forms:

• Form G-1650 (Authorization for ACH Transactions) to pay by bank debit

• Form G-1450 (Authorization for Credit Card Transactions) to pay by credit card

According to USCIS, the purpose of the new policy is to modernize its payment infrastructure and reduce the risk of lost checks, delayed mail, and fraud. 

To adapt quickly to the new policy, immigration practices will need to gain a clear understanding of how to pay USCIS filing fees, and many will need to update internal payment processes. If your firm previously used paper checks or money orders for fee payments, it’s now even more important to collect client payment information early in the intake process, confirm its accuracy, and ensure each payment is submitted through the correct channel. 

Strategies for managing electronic USCIS fee payments

Now that USCIS requires electronic payment methods, immigration law firms face new operational challenges. Manual processes that once worked, like tracking fees in spreadsheets, are no longer practical. Fortunately, modern legal expense management tools can help firms stay organized, secure, and compliant in this new environment.

By adopting tools that centralize payments, tie transactions to individual matters, and log data in real time, firms can reduce risk, prevent errors, and ensure trust accounting stays accurate.

Limit firm financial data exposure

Protecting sensitive financial information has always been important—but with the shift to electronic payments, the risks have changed. Rather than sending checks, filers who submit paper applications will need to mail forms that include credit card or bank account details, making them vulnerable to theft if packets are lost or mishandled.

To protect both firm and client accounts, it’s smart to move away from relying on shared firmwide credit cards or sending account information through unsecured channels. Instead, consider using a practice management solution that offers tools such as:

• Case-specific payment methods tied to each matter

• Encrypted ACH processing that limits who can access account data

• Built-in spend limits and user-level permissions

These practices help limit the exposure of financial data across cases and reduce the likelihood of unauthorized or misrouted transactions.

Maintain 1:1 fee-to-case tracking

When all USCIS charges show up under the same generic label in a firm’s accounting system or bank statement, it becomes difficult to determine which payment goes with which client’s filing. This makes trust accounting more complicated and increases the risk of errors or unbilled expenses.

To prevent this, immigration firms should consider implementing a solution that:

• Assigns unique digital tags or identifiers to each USCIS filing fee

• Links each transaction directly to the relevant matter or trust account

• Enables reconciliation at both the case and firm level

This level of tracking ensures transparency for clients, improves billing accuracy, and makes audits and compliance tasks much easier to manage.

Gain real-time insights into USCIS processing

Tracking the status of USCIS fee payments can be frustrating. The agency doesn’t send a receipt notice until an application is accepted, which can take up to two weeks to receive, leaving firms in the dark about whether a transaction has been successfully processed. 

To avoid delays and unnecessary guesswork, look for a solution that can:

• Send instant payment confirmations as soon as a transaction is approved

• Automatically log each transaction with details like timestamps and payment IDs

• Provide real-time dashboards so your team can monitor multiple filings at a glance

Having immediate visibility into payment activity makes it easier to stay on top of case statuses and give clients regular updates.

Streamline USCIS fee management with 8am™ Smart Spend

Managing USCIS filings has become more complex with the rollout of the 2025 fee schedule and the shift to electronic payments.

8am Smart Spend—the secure, efficient suite of expense management tools built into 8am MyCase—gives immigration attorneys a centralized solution for handling payments, tracking expenses by case, and maintaining compliance with government requirements. From payment authorization to trust accounting and invoicing, every step is managed securely in one place.

Smart Spend makes it easy for firms to:

• Ensure each payment is associated with the correct matter by generating unique virtual credit cards for every case

• Get immediate confirmation of successful payments with real-time dashboards and SMS notifications

• Maintain healthy cash flows by instantly adding processed payments to client invoices and disbursing funds from the correct trust account

To see how Smart Spend can simplify USCIS fee management at your firm, schedule a demo of MyCase today.