Unites States to hike visa application fee from June 4

The American Embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday announced that all consular sections of the United States worldwide would introduce a two-tiered fee structure for non-immigrant visas. It also announced the hike in fee “to balance the costs of recent enhancements to the visa application process”.

For business and tourism
Each applicant seeking business or tourism (B-1/B-2) or crew member (C-1/D) or student (F or M), or exchange (J) visa will now pay US $140 and receive a white receipt.
Applicants seeking petition-based work visas (H, L, O, P, Q, and R categories) will pay United States $150 and get a green receipt. The white and green receipts are to be purchased at approved HDFC Bank branches.

Applicants seeking K (fiancé) visa will pay US $350 each at the consular section.
The previous application fee was $131 for all visas.Applicants who have already received their receipts will pay the differential amount at the time of interview.

“The Department of State adopted the tiered system because petition-based applications require significantly more processing than other visa applications. The fee increase is for improvements in the manner and speed with which visa applications are processed, and in particular for fraud-detection efforts. The total fee covers the cost of accepting, adjudicating, and issuing nonimmigrant visa applications,” a spokesman of the US Embassy in Delhi said.

He said the US government had increased consulate staffing in India by 40 per cent over the last four years and had invested over $100 million updating and expanding consular facilities in the country, including setting up of a new consulate in Hyderabad, renovations of consular facilities in New Delhi and a new consulate building in Mumbai.