What Fees and Expenses the US Employment-Based Visa Process Involves

A US work visa cost splits in two before anything else. The petition side falls to the sponsoring employer and the application side falls to the candidate, and counting only government fees an employment-based case for one applicant lands in the low thousands of dollars.

The term covers two families. Temporary visas such as the H-1B or the L-1 authorise work for a set period, while permanent residence through employment, the EB categories, is the route this article covers. Our guide to types of US visas covers the first group.

Global Express Recruiting is a recruitment firm. It does not provide legal advice or immigration services. Immigration processes are handled by the sponsoring employer and its attorneys.

Who Pays for What in an Employment-Based Process

The fee schedule assigns each charge to whoever submits the filing. The employer files the immigrant petition, so those charges fall to the employer; the candidate files the application for the benefit, so those fall to the candidate. On EB-1A and EB-2 NIW there is no employer, and the self-petitioner carries both sides.

One assignment is set by rule. Under 20 CFR 656.12(b) an employer running a permanent labor certification “must not seek or receive payment of any kind” for any activity related to obtaining it, including its own attorneys’ fees, though the same regulation lets the worker pay the costs of an attorney representing the worker, except where one attorney acts for both parties. Beyond that, how costs are shared depends on the regulations and the facts, and the question belongs to the employer’s attorneys.

Government Fees You Can Verify Yourself

Two public documents hold the current amount of every charge, and they are the only figures worth budgeting from. USCIS publishes Form G-1055, its fee schedule, currently the edition of 29 May 2026, and runs a calculator that returns the amount due for a given form. The Department of State publishes its consular fee schedule in 22 CFR 22.1, in force since 1 July 2026 and only through 31 December 2026. Look each charge up by form number rather than trusting a total copied from an article.

USCIS petition and filing fees

The employment-based immigrant petition is Form I-140, and most petitioners pay the Asylum Program Fee alongside it in three tiers: full for a regular petitioner, reduced for a self-petitioner or a small employer, and nothing for a non-profit. Inside the United States the main filing is Form I-485, cheaper for a child under 14 filing with a parent, often joined by work authorisation on Form I-765, which costs less when a qualifying I-485 is still pending, and a travel document on Form I-131. Two details get missed: the I-485 fee already covers biometrics, and premium processing on Form I-907, is a service the petitioner may request, never a requirement.

Adjustment of status and consular processing

A candidate already in the United States adjusts status with the I-485; a candidate abroad files Form DS-260 at a consulate instead. That consular charge is where published totals go wrong most often, because the Department of State sets a higher fee for an employment-based immigrant visa than for a family case and almost every summary online applies the family figure to both. After approval USCIS charges a separate Immigrant Fee, paid before travelling. One charge employment cases usually skip is the Affidavit of Support review: under 8 USC 1182(a)(4)(D), Form I-864 is required only when the petition came from a relative, or from an entity in which that relative holds a significant ownership interest.

The immigration medical exam

Every immigrant applicant needs a medical exam on Form I-693, and no government body sets its price. A designated civil surgeon performs it for adjustment of status and a panel physician performs it abroad, each setting a fee the applicant pays directly. Any figure published for this step is an average of private prices, and it moves with the vaccinations still needed.

Processing fees by Employment Program

Official fees barely move between employment categories, because they share the same forms. What changes is the number of filings, whether a labor certification comes first, and whether the route asks for capital instead of a fee. Each program page carries the cost range for its route, and that is the figure to work from.

Self-petition routes: EB-1A and EB-2 NIW

These two are the leanest on filings, because the candidate petitions without an employer and pays the reduced tier of the Asylum Program Fee. EB-1A is the extraordinary ability category, and its saving is in filings rather than in effort: the evidentiary standard is the highest of the immigrant categories, so the work concentrates in assembling the record.

The EB-2 National Interest Waiver removes the step that comes before everything else. Without it, an EB-2 case starts with a PERM labor certification at the Department of Labor, which the employer initiates through its own attorneys and pays for under the rule above. See the EB-1A program and EB-2 program pages for the profile each one expects and what the route costs.

Employer-sponsored routes: EB-3 and Global SkyMasters

EB-3 covers skilled workers, professionals and other workers, and carries the most filings because it normally runs a full labor certification before the candidate reaches the visa or adjustment stage. Our own EB-3 page states the budget a candidate should plan for taking part in the program, roughly $12,500 to $32,500, a figure that covers far more than the agency charges. What also differs is the waiting, so here the cost shows up as time.

The pilot hiring program runs on the same employment sponsorship, so there is no separate government fee for being a pilot. What is specific to it sits on the qualification side: flight hours, licences and type ratings decide eligibility, and those costs precede any immigration filing. See the EB-3 process step by step, the EB-3 program and Global SkyMasters.

Routes that ask for capital or carry no sponsorship: E-2, EB-5 and student visas

The E-2 is a nonimmigrant treaty investor visa, so the money that matters is capital going into a business rather than a fee going to an agency, and the regulation sets no minimum. Under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(14) a substantial investment is one “substantial in relationship to the total cost” of buying or creating that kind of business, and the cheaper the business, the higher the investment must be in proportion. That does not mean any amount qualifies, because the business must be real, active and operating and cannot be marginal under 8 CFR 214.2(e)(15).

EB-5 is the one route where the largest number is not a fee at all: under 8 USC 1153(b)(5)(C) an investor commits a statutory minimum starting at around $800,000 in a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, and roughly a million elsewhere, placed at risk in a business that creates jobs. Both thresholds adjust for inflation from 1 January 2027, and one caution applies to its filings, Forms I-526E and I-829: the amounts in 8 CFR 106.2 and in the current G-1055 do not match, so confirm the figure in the edition in force on the day of filing.

Student visas sit outside sponsorship. The F-1 covers academic study and the M-1 vocational programs, and their agency charges are few and fixed, a SEVIS fee on Form I-901 plus the visa application, but neither carries employment sponsorship on its own. The expense that decides this route is proof of funds for tuition and living costs, which our own page puts in the region of $10,000 to $20,000. See the E-2 minimum investment, the E-2 program, the EB-5 program and the Global Academic program.

What Makes the Total of the Process Vary

Four things move the total, and none is the base fee. The first is how many people travel with the case: the I-140 is one charge per petition, but the I-485 and the DS-260 are charged per applicant, so a spouse and unmarried children under 21 must pay the fees for each individual. The second is timing: a priority date moving backwards in the Visa Bulletin, which the Department of State calls retrogression, raises no fee but it delays the process , and a case that spans a fee increase pays whatever is in force the day each filing goes in.

The third is documentation, where most budgets fall short: a Request for Evidence costs nothing to receive and a great deal to answer, and certified translations and apostilles accumulate quietly. The fourth is policy. An extraordinary charge on certain H-1B petitions announced in September 2025 is the clearest recent example: as of 2 September 2026 the guidance implementing it has been vacated by court order, the case is on appeal, and DHS states it plans to collect if the order is lifted. It does not apply to the employment-based categories above.

Where a Recruitment Consultancy Fits

The cost of an immigration process and the cost of finding a sponsor are different problems. A candidate cannot file anything until a US company offers a job and agrees to sponsor it, and that employer, with its own attorneys, then handles the petition and the charges assigned to it. The recruiter’s work sits before that: identifying companies that sponsor international talent, matching them with candidates whose profile fits the role, and supporting the move once an offer exists. Global Express Recruiting works as a recruitment consultancy in that stage, on the routes that begin with a sponsoring employer, such as EB-3, EB-2 with a job offer and the pilot hiring program. The legal path that follows belongs to the employer and its counsel.