Nonimmigrant Visa Fee to Increase 11.01.2002
Posted Oct 11, 2002

Effective November 1, 2002 the U.S. Department of State (DOS) is increasing the nonimmigrant visa fee to $100. This fee is also known as the machine-readable visa fee or the visa application fee. The current fee amount is $65.

This fee is being instituted on an emergency basis. The current financial strain has resulted from the need to quickly implement tighter security measures while there has been a decrease in visa applications. As costs have been increasing, the number of visa applications dropped by 20% during FY2002 (October 1, 2001 to September 30, 2002.) The decrease in revenue from applications has reduced the available funds needed to fulfill the security requirements, including additional record checks and more frequent interviews, resulting in a financial emergency.

As regular readers of the MurthyBulletin and MurthyDotCom are aware, nonimmigrant (temporary) visas are subject to two types of fees. One is the visa fee described above. This fee applies equally to all categories of nonimmigrant visas and to all applicants. The other fee is often called the reciprocity fee. This second fee varies depending upon the type of visa and the citizenship of the applicant.

The DOS guidebook, known as the Foreign Affairs Manual, contains a "reciprocity schedule" indicating any fee required for each type of visa for nationals of each country. The term "reciprocity" is used because the fee amounts are intended to be consistent with the fees that a U.S. citizen would have to pay for a similar visa to that particular country. In the world of diplomacy, the principle of reciprocity is paramount. These fees are not impacted by the current fee increase.

On June 21, 2002, we reported that the reciprocity fee had been eliminated for French applicants in our MurthyBulletin article entitled Reciprocity Fee Eliminated for French NIV Applicants, available at MurthyDotCom. As explained in that article, citizens of some countries are charged for nearly all types of visas, while other countries have no reciprocity fees at all. Many countries are somewhere in the middle, with fee requirements for some visas, but not for others. The DOS reciprocity schedule is available online. Click on the first letter of the country of interest.