Reciprocity Fee Eliminated for French NIV Applicants
Posted Jun 21, 2002

The U.S. Embassy in Paris has announced that French citizens applying for nonimmigrant (temporary) visas will no longer have to pay a "reciprocity fee." There are two types of fees for nonimmigrant visas. The first is a visa application fee (formerly known as a machine readable visa fee), and the other is a fee that varies depending upon one's country of citizenship. The latter type of fee is set based upon reciprocity. In other words, if a U.S. citizen applicant obtaining a temporary visa from that country would have to pay a fee, then that country's citizens have to pay similar fees for U.S. visas.

Applicants from all countries pay the application fee, which increased from $45 to $65 as of June 1, 2002. But for many countries, including Japan, Switzerland, Argentina, Pakistan, Chile, Spain, South Korea, and now France, there is no reciprocity fee. For other countries, such as Australia and South Africa, some types of visas carry the fee and others do not. Indian citizens pay reciprocity fees for nearly all types of nonimmigrant visas. There are a very few exceptions, such as diplomats and fiancé/es.