Official - Becoming a US Citizen or Permanent Resident is Now More Expensive

By Diego Pineda

Beginning July 30, 2007, immigrants seeking to become US citizens or permanent residents will have to pay more in immigration fees. In some cases, the fees have almost tripled, such as the adjustment of status fee that will change from $325 to $930.

Back in February the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had announced their plan of increasing their fee structure to finance the modernization of the agency. According to a USCIS press release:

“USCIS expects that the revenue from the new fee structure will lead to a 20 percent reduction in average application processing times by the end of fiscal year 2009, and will cut processing times by the end of fiscal year 2008 for four key application types: the I-90 (Renew / Replace Permanent Resident Card), I-140 (Immigration Petition for Alien Worker), the I-485, and the N-400 (Naturalization). These four application types represent one-third of all applications filed.”

Although the above may sound like good news in terms of processing times, the new fees are a hard blow to thousands of immigrants who couldn’t even afford paying the current fees.
With the new fees, a family of two adults and two children filing for a green card will pay more than $3,000 in fees alone—add to that the cost of the required medical examinations, photos, and attorney’s fees.

Some of the changes include:
* Form I-130 (Family-based Petition): From $190 to $355
* Form I-140 (Employment-based Petition): From $195 to $475
* Form I-485 (Adjustment of Status): From $325 to $930 (adults); from $225 to $600 (children under 14)

The complete list of fees is available at the USCIS Web site:

Diego Pineda is the author of Getting a Green Card for Less: How to file the I-485 without an immigration lawyer. To learn how to save up to $5,000 in attorney’s fees go to greencardforless.com