US citizenship to cost more from Oct 26

If you are applying for United States citizenship or planning to apply for any other immigration benefits, be ready to pay more from October 26.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced in the Federal Register a revised fee structure for immigration benefits. The new fee structure will add an average of $10 to each application and petition in order to account for inflation.

The fee increases range from $5 more to replace a permanent resident card, which will now cost $190 to as much as $20 more to obtain a US visas for a child adopted internationally, which will now be $545.

Fees collected from persons filing immigration benefit applications and petitions are used to fund the full cost of providing immigration benefits such as asylum and refugee admission for which no fee is charged.

"USCIS is committed to delivering world class customer service," said acting USCIS deputy director Robert Divine.

"Because USCIS is a fee-based agency, we must charge amounts that will recover the full costs of our operations in order to continue the progress we have made in reducing the backlog. USCIS has already reduced its backlog from 3.9 million to 1.1 million cases."

The fees were last adjusted in April 2000.