US EB-5 Visa Fee Hike: USCIS More Than Doubles I-526 Filing Fee To $7,615, Raising Costs For Indian Investors Seeking Green Cards

Washington: The United States has finalised steep fee increases for its EB-5 immigrant-investor programme, more than doubling the cost of filing some petitions in a change likely to affect applicants from India seeking permanent residence through investment.

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US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the revised fee structure on Tuesday. The new charges are scheduled to take effect on November 30.

The filing fee for Form I-526, used by standalone investors, will rise from $3,675 to $7,615.

The fee for an initial Form I-526E petition, used by investors participating through an approved regional centre, will increase from $3,675 to $7,850.

Initial I-526 and I-526E petitions will also include a $75 technology fee. Regional-centre investors must additionally pay the programme’s investor integrity fee.

The fee for Form I-829, filed by investors seeking to remove conditions on their permanent resident status, will increase from $3,750 to $5,000.

Charges imposed on regional centres will rise more sharply.

The fee for an initial Form I-956 application seeking regional-centre designation will increase from $17,795 to $44,115. The charge for Form I-956F, used to seek approval of an investment in a commercial enterprise, will rise to $42,675.

The annual fee for Form I-956G will fall from $3,035 to $2,165, however.

The final rule also establishes Form I-527 for certain investors seeking to amend older Form I-526 petitions. The new filing will cost $10,330.

The fee schedule was released for public inspection on Tuesday and is due to be formally published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

USCIS said the revisions are intended to ensure that fees fully cover the cost of operating the EB-5 programme, help the agency meet statutory processing targets and support strengthened integrity measures.

Those measures include audits, compliance reviews, site visits and efforts to detect fraud and abuse.

USCIS is largely financed through application and petition fees rather than direct taxpayer funding. The agency said the cost of examining applications, verifying eligibility, conducting background checks and maintaining programme operations must therefore be paid by those using the immigration system.

The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 directed USCIS to undertake a separate study of the programme’s costs. It also required the agency to set fees at levels sufficient to recover the full expense of administering it.

The law established processing goals and expanded oversight of regional centres, promoters and investment projects.

The new rule also raises the annual EB-5 Integrity Fund payment from $10,000 to $11,000 for regional centres with 20 or fewer investors. The charge for larger regional centres will increase from $20,000 to $22,000.

It establishes penalties for late payments. A regional centre paying in November after the deadline could face a 10 per cent penalty. The penalty would rise to 20 per cent for payments made in December, with possible termination for continued non-payment.

USCIS said the changes were designed to strengthen the integrity of the programme while ensuring sufficient resources to process investor petitions.

Congress created the EB-5 programme in 1990 to encourage foreign capital investment and job creation in the United States. Qualifying investors may obtain conditional permanent residence for themselves, their spouses and eligible children by investing in an American commercial enterprise and creating the required number of jobs.

The programme generally requires an investment of $800,000 in a targeted employment area or qualifying infrastructure project, or $1.05 million elsewhere. For Indian applicants, the government filing charges are separate from the required capital investment, legal expenses and administrative fees charged by individual regional-centre projects.

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