Beginning today, every immigration benefit request mailed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) must include the agency’s newly-adjusted filing fees. The increases—mandated by section 100004 of the 2025 H.R. 1 reconciliation law—apply to the limited set of fees that are pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) and automatically rise each fiscal year. The 2027 fiscal-year adjustment raises four fees that matter most to global-mobility programs: the $102 asylum application surcharge rises to $105; the parole filing fee attached to Form I-131 climbs from $1,020 to $1,050; the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) application fee increases from $55 to $56; and the employment-authorization document (EAD) fee for TPS holders, asylees and parolees moves from $560 to $570. All other USCIS fees—including the base I-129 and I-140 petition charges paid by U.S. employers—remain unchanged for now. Although the dollar changes are modest, missing even a US$1 adjustment will trigger an automatic rejection. Corporate mobility managers should therefore update internal checklists, budget assumptions and outside-counsel instructions immediately. Filings sent by courier must be post-marked 16 October or earlier to be accepted with the old amount. Because the new fees apply only to discrete humanitarian categories, most employment petitions will be unaffected, but assignees relying on parole (for example, under the International Entrepreneur Rule) or TPS must budget for the higher amounts. The fee notice is the first CPI-indexed increase implemented under H.R. 1. Larger across-the-board fee restructuring—originally proposed in 2025—remains tied up in litigation. Employers should nevertheless expect annual CPI bumps every 16 October going forward, forcing HR departments to build in fee-tracking controls alongside routine I-9 and public-access-file updates. For foreign nationals, the practical advice is simple: review any pending mail-in asylum, TPS, parole or humanitarian EAD filings and make sure the cheque or money order reflects today’s schedule. E-filed cases lock the amount automatically, but paper filings do not.
Source: Hindustan Times
