U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has finalized new fees for the EB-5 program, which lets immigrants seek permanent residence by investing in a U.S. business that creates at least 10 full-time jobs. The rule, published in the Federal Register September 30, raises most of the program's fees, adds a technology fee, and codifies penalties Congress wrote into law in 2022.
Which forms, which fees
A standalone investor's petition, Form I-526, costs $7,615. A regional center investor's petition, Form I-526E, costs $7,850 to file initially and $7,775 to amend; a $75 technology fee is already included in the I-526 fee and the I-526E initial-filing fee, but not the amendment fee. Investors who filed before the 2022 Act can use a new form, I-527, to amend an old petition for $10,330 if their regional center is terminated or their business debarred. Removing conditions on permanent residence, Form I-829, costs $5,000. A regional center's own application, Form I-956, now costs $44,115 to file initially, up from $17,795, or $9,835 to amend, down from that same $17,795. Approving an investment offering (I-956F) costs $42,675; a regional center's annual statement (I-956G) $2,165; an attestation by a person involved with the center (I-956H) $65; and registering a promoter (I-956K) $2,165.
A regional center investor's petition also carries a separate EB-5 Integrity Fund fee of $1,100, up from $1,000, on top of the filing fee. Each regional center owes an annual Integrity Fund fee as well: $22,000, up from $20,000, or $11,000, up from $10,000, if it has 20 or fewer investors. All three rise about 10 percent, which USCIS says is the consumer-price-index change from 2022 to 2025. Across the nine EB-5 forms that already existed, it says fees rise about 70.7 percent, or about $2,945.90 per form on a weighted average.
Statute versus agency choice
The 2022 law required an EB-5 fee study and authorizes USCIS to set the program's fees, which USCIS says it set to recover the program's full cost. The Integrity Fund fees sit under a different authority: the rule says the law lets DHS adjust them to keep the fund sufficient for its permitted uses, and USCIS chose inflation. The dollar figure for each form — including the $10,330 for the new Form I-527, above the $8,000 proposed — came from USCIS's own cost study, not a number Congress set.
The dates
The rule is effective November 30, 2026. Its DATES section states: "Any application, petition, or request postmarked on or after this date must be accompanied by the fees established by this final rule." The sections of the rule this desk read do not say what happens to petitions already filed and pending when the new fees take effect.
What this record does not say
USCIS's own comparison of "current" and "final" fees is a graphic, not text, in both the plain-text and printed versions of the rule, and this desk could not read it. The prior-fee figures above come only from the rule's prose, which gives a prior fee for the Form I-956 filings and the Integrity Fund fees but not for the other forms.