At 21:24 IST on 31 October, USCIS confirmed it has stopped accepting cheques and money orders for all immigration filings. Applicants—including Indian H-1B employers, F-1 students and family-based petitioners—must now authorise electronic debit via the new Form G-1650 or pay by credit card (Form G-1450).
The policy is more than a payments tweak: it accelerates USCIS’s push toward fully digital case processing, promising fewer bounced cheques and quicker fee reconciliation. Yet it immediately inconveniences many Indian applicants who submit petitions from outside the United States, often before opening a U.S. bank account. International students arriving for the January intake could find themselves unable to file without local banking arrangements.
Corporate mobility teams should coordinate early with U.S. finance departments to authorise ACH debits and verify routing details. Attorneys advise updating engagement letters to reflect stricter refund rules: rejected debits now trigger automatic case rejection instead of an RFE (Request for Evidence), shortening the remedial window.
For Indian service-sector firms that bulk-file H-1Bs, the change may streamline internal accounting but requires system upgrades to reconcile ACH transactions with petition receipts. Smaller employers that previously relied on bank drafts will need new processes or third-party payers.
In the medium term, the shift foreshadows a future in which all USCIS forms, evidence submissions and fee payments move onto one end-to-end digital platform—a move that might ultimately shorten adjudication times but will reward those who adapt early.
The policy is more than a payments tweak: it accelerates USCIS’s push toward fully digital case processing, promising fewer bounced cheques and quicker fee reconciliation. Yet it immediately inconveniences many Indian applicants who submit petitions from outside the United States, often before opening a U.S. bank account. International students arriving for the January intake could find themselves unable to file without local banking arrangements.
Corporate mobility teams should coordinate early with U.S. finance departments to authorise ACH debits and verify routing details. Attorneys advise updating engagement letters to reflect stricter refund rules: rejected debits now trigger automatic case rejection instead of an RFE (Request for Evidence), shortening the remedial window.
For Indian service-sector firms that bulk-file H-1Bs, the change may streamline internal accounting but requires system upgrades to reconcile ACH transactions with petition receipts. Smaller employers that previously relied on bank drafts will need new processes or third-party payers.
In the medium term, the shift foreshadows a future in which all USCIS forms, evidence submissions and fee payments move onto one end-to-end digital platform—a move that might ultimately shorten adjudication times but will reward those who adapt early.
