United States | USCIS announces new immigration fees required under H.R. 1, effective July 22

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) posted an advance copy of a Federal Register Notice (FRN) implementing new immigration-related fees under the H.R. 1 Reconciliation Bill, a.k.a. the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R. 1). The FRN is scheduled to be published July 22. In a news release published July 21, USCIS announced these fees will apply to certain immigration benefit requests postmarked on or after July 22, 2025.

Key Points:

• The FRN outlines who is subject to the new fees, effective date, payment instructions, waiver limitations, non-payment consequences, annual inflation adjustments and agency allocation of fee revenue.
• In a July 21 news release, USCIS summarized the new fees addressed in the FRN:
  • A $100 fee for individuals filing Form I-589 (the Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal) plus an Annual Asylum Fee (AAF) of $100 for every year the applicant’s I-589 is pending
  • A $550 fee for the initial Employment Authorization Documentation (EAD) applications plus $275 for renewal or extension of EAD applications for applicants who file Form I-765 (the application for Employment Authorization) for asylum, parolee and certain Temporary Protected Status (TPS) categories; However, if an EAD is requested by filing Form I-131 (the Application for Travel Documents, Parole Documents, and Arrival/Departure Records) after a new parole period has been approved, the fee will be $275
  • Increasing the maximum cost to register for TPS using Form I-821 (the Application for Temporary Protected Status) to $500
  • A $250 Special Immigrant Juvenile fee
• In addition to the new immigration fees, H.R. 1 changed the validity period for some EAD categories, including for parolees and TPS beneficiaries.
• The FRN does not address all of the new fees required by H.R. 1. For example, the notice states that the visa integrity fee “requires cross-agency coordination before implementing; the fee will be implemented in a future publication.”
• The Department of Homeland Security will address the implementation of fees not covered in the FRN in a future action.
• The USCIS alert states that forms submitted without the correct fees after August 21, 2025, will be rejected.

Additional Information: H.R.1 was signed into law on July 4, 2025. Titles IX and X include various immigration-related provisions, in addition to new fees, as well as more than $140 billion allocated to border security and enforcement measures.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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