18/01/2016
USA:H1B and L1 Fee to go up by USD 4000 and USD 4500 until year 2025.
This Omnibus bill to increase the H1B and L1 petition Fee passed both US House of Representatives and US Senate on Friday (Dec 18th, 2015). It was also signed by President Obama to be law soon.
Congress is set to vote on a bill that will increase the H1B and L1 visa petition application fee tomorrow (Friday). Below is the quick summary of the changes.
Back in 2010, there was rule passed that increase H1B and L1 Fee by $2000, that rule ended earlier this year by Sep 30, 2015. Now, on the similar lines to fund the border protection and modernization of entry exit system by Bio-metrics tracking system, Congress is passing a massive bill that will increase the H1B and L1 Visa fees.
Summary of the H1B and L1 Visa Fee increase proposal by Congress:
The H1B visa petition application fee paid to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) for new and extensions to be increased by USD 4000 and the L1 visa application fee to increase by USD 4,500 for employers that fall under category as describe below.Companies that have 50 or more employees in USA and 50 percent of their employees are non-immigrants.The proposed fee increase will be valid for the next 10 year, until September 30, 2025.Based on analysis from other news agencies, this change is expected to bring in about more than One Billion USD per year.Many of the Indian outsourcing companies and the Indian government are not very happy about the proposed changes as it takes a huge hit for all the outsourcing companies from their cost perspective.