What's New

New Schedule Of Fees For U.S. Consular Services

March 1, 2005

NEW DELHI - Starting March 8, new fees will come into effect for a variety of consular services performed at the U.S. Embassy, New Delhi, and the U.S. Consulates in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata. Highlights of the changes that are of particular interest to persons in India are given below. These changes are in accordance with new U.S. Department of State of State directives and are applicable worldwide.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 created a new $500 Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee, the proceeds of which will be used to assist in detecting and deterring fraud in H-1B and L visas. The Department of Homeland Security will collect the new fraud prevention and detection fee domestically from employers in the United States filing a petition to initially grant an alien H-1B or L status or to obtain authorization for an alien having such status to change employers. Visa Sections at U.S. Embassies and Consulates overseas, will collect a similar $500 fee on the applicants for L-1 visas under blanket L petitions as their employers would not have already been charged this fee domestically.

-- Persons applying for "blanket" L-1 visas at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi or the U.S. Consulates in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata must pay this $500 "fraud prevention and detection fee" at the time they make their visa application. Only the principal applicant applying for the L-1 visa needs to pay this fee. The fee does not apply to any spouse or children applying for a L-2 visa. This fee must be paid via a bank draft for Rs. 22,000 made out to the American Embassy or to the American Consulate General where the applicant will be applying.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act also created two other fees:

-- A surcharge of $12 to be added to current U.S. passport application fees: This fee will be used to increase border security by strengthening the security of the passport adjudication process and the physical passport itself. The surcharge will be used to support the issuance of a newly redesigned passport containing new security features. One of these is the addition of a biometric identifier. A chip will be embedded in the cover and will contain the same information that appears on the data page, including the bearer's picture as the biometric.

-- A surcharge of $45 to be added to the current fees for immigrant visas, making the new total fee $380: This surcharge will be used to support a multi-year effort to increase border security by strengthening the security of the immigrant visa adjudication process and the physical immigrant visa document itself. These changes include the developmental and operating costs of migrating the immigrant visa to a machine-readable format using a secure visa foil and implementation of digital photo and electronic fingerprint collection as required by recent legislative mandates.

The following changes to the Schedule of Fees for U.S. consular services are among those being implemented due to a recently concluded cost-of-service study:

-- A reduction in the fee charged for issuance of a transportation letter for Legal Permanent Resident Aliens (LPRA) to reenter the U.S. from abroad from $300 to $165;

-- An increase in the fee for adjudicating an application for Returning Resident status from $360 to $400.