USCIS Final Rule

On January 31st, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released its Final Rule regarding fee increases for H-2A, H-2B, and immigrant visa petitions. These new fees will go into effect April 1, 2024 and are applicable to all petitions received by USCIS on or after that date. You can read the full rule HERE.

As you may recall from the draft rule released in January 2023, the agency proposed to: (1) increase the base fees for all immigrant and nonimmigrant petitions, (2) impose additional fees for H-2A and H-2B named petitions (i.e., for transfers and extensions), and (3) require petitioning employers to pay a mandatory fee to help fund the agency’s humanitarian asylum program.

Fee Amounts

In general, the Final Rule released yesterday adopts all major provisions of the proposed rule. The exact fee amounts are specified in the chart below.

Please note the reduced fees for “small employers” (defined as a business with 25 or fewer full-time equivalent employees – including all subsidiaries and affiliate entities) and 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.

Premium Processing

Please note that the foregoing fee increases are in addition to USCIS’s Premium Processing fee increase for H-2B and immigrant petitions, scheduled to go into effect on February 26, 2024. Per our most recent communication, the Premium Processing fee will increase as follows:

The Premium Processing fee is not applicable to H-2A petitions.

We also note that the Final Rule changes the guaranteed turnaround time on Premium Processing cases. Currently, filing with Premium Processing guarantees “first action” on your petition within 15 calendar days. The Final Rule modifies this standard to 15 business days. This may result in a minor delay in petition approval.

Limitations on Named Petitions

In addition to the fee increases, the Final Rule caps the number of workers that may be included on a single named petition to 25 workers.

In practice, this means that employers transferring or extending the status of large groups of workers will need to file separate petitions (and pay all associated fees) for each increment of 25 workers.

Conclusion

We share in your disappointment that USCIS has decided to dramatically increase the program participation costs for H-2A and H-2B employers, particularly on the heels of increasing wage rates and other employer-unfriendly program changes. We also understand that the new fee framework may be confusing, given the high degree of variability depending on petition type and employer circumstances.

Over the next several days, másLabor will conducting a comprehensive analysis on the Final Rule’s impact. In the interim, we highly recommend beginning your filings now, to avoid the increased fees come April 1st. If you are new to the programs, please contact us so that we can get you started.