Five USCIS fees change on 16 October. Underpaying by $10 costs you your filing date
Last updated 2026-10-01 · General information, not legal advice
USCIS posted its fiscal year 2027 inflation adjustment on 30 September 2026, and the notice ran in the Federal Register the next day. Filings postmarked on or after 16 October 2026 must carry the new fee. Only the fees created by H.R. 1 moved, which means asylum, TPS and parole filings; the increases run from $3 to $30. Common forms such as the I-485, I-130 and N-400 are nowhere on the list. The notice states that a request postmarked on or after 16 October without the proper fee will be rejected, and a rejected filing keeps no filing date. A shortfall of $10 is enough.
What went up, and by how much
These are the fees that H.R. 1 — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, signed 4 July 2025 — added to the Immigration and Nationality Act. The statute requires USCIS to re-index them every fiscal year to the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. For this round USCIS used July 2025 against July 2026, when CPI-U went from 323.048 to 333.918, an increase of 3.36 percent.
| Fee | Now | From 16 Oct | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| I-765 initial EAD, asylum applicant | $560 | $570 | +$10 |
| I-765 initial EAD, parole (valid 1 year) | $560 | $570 | +$10 |
| I-765 initial EAD, TPS (1 year or the designation, whichever is shorter) | $560 | $570 | +$10 |
| I-821 TPS application | $510 | $520 | +$10 |
| I-131 immigration parole fee | $1,020 | $1,050 | +$30 |
| I-589 annual pending asylum application fee | $102 | $105 | +$3 |
| I-765 renewal or extension, asylum applicant | $275 | $275 | unchanged |
| I-765 renewal or extension, parole | $280 | $280 | unchanged |
| I-765 renewal or extension, TPS | $280 | $280 | unchanged |
| I-765 re-parole EAD | $280 | $280 | unchanged |
| I-589 asylum application, initial fee | $100 | $100 | unchanged |
| I-360 special immigrant juvenile | $250 | $250 | unchanged |
| I-94 immigration fee | $24 | $24 | unchanged |
Only five of the thirteen actually changed, and the rounding rule is why. H.R. 1 tells USCIS to round each adjusted fee down to the next lowest multiple of $10, so $280 plus 3.36 percent comes to $289.42 and rounds back to $280. The annual asylum fee rounds down to the nearest dollar instead, which turns $105.43 into $105. (91 FR 62540, 1 October 2026; the USCIS alert is at uscis.gov.)
Do not work the 3.36 percent out yourself. The arithmetic and the amount due are different numbers: an initial asylum EAD comes to $578.84 on a calculator and $570 on the cheque. Pay what the notice publishes.
The $275 renewal fee for an asylum applicant's work permit is the one line that will stay where it is. USCIS notes that H.R. 1 gave it no authority to index that fee at all, citing 8 U.S.C. § 1810, so future inflation rounds will pass it by. The $280 renewal fees above it do carry that authority and simply rounded back down this year.
What is not on the list
Two notices went out on 1 October 2026 and only one of them is this fee schedule. The other is a DHS notice adjusting two fees tied to removal and to apprehension between ports of entry, which has nothing to do with waiting on a pending benefit, so it is not covered here.
Any form absent from the USCIS table is unchanged by this notice:
- I-485, I-130, I-140, N-400 and I-751. None of them appears.
- A work permit based on a pending I-485, and OPT for F-1 students. Every I-765 line in the table is an asylum, parole or TPS category. Your receipt notice gives the eligibility category your EAD was filed under.
- Re-entry permits and advance parole. The I-131 line is the H.R. 1 immigration parole fee, charged to people paroled into the United States. It shares a form number with the advance parole and re-entry permit applications that I-485 applicants file, and it is a different fee.
For anything outside this table, check the amount on the day you file against the USCIS fee schedule at Form G-1055.
What this means for a delay case
A case already on file is untouched. The new amounts attach by postmark, and yours was posted before 16 October, so your receipt date stands and nothing about the adjustment reaches back. An I-765 that has been pending fourteen months is still fourteen months old on 17 October.
If you are filing or re-filing, $10 short does the same damage as $500 short. The DATES section says a request postmarked on or after 16 October without the proper fee will be rejected, and 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(a)(7)(ii) provides that a rejected filing retains no filing date (full text of 8 C.F.R. § 103.2 at govinfo.gov). Move the receipt date and you move two other things with it: when the case-inquiry line opens to you, and how long a court will say you have been waiting. That machinery is set out in last month's piece on form editions and is not repeated here.
The annual asylum fee is the only one of these that grows with the delay. The rest are paid once, at filing. This one is charged for each year the application stays pending, so another year of waiting is another payment. The amount is $102 today and $105 from 16 October, and each payment goes at the rate for its own year — a long wait leaves you holding several different figures.
When a court weighs whether a delay has become unreasonable, the length of the wait is one question and the concrete harm it has done you is another. That second question is the fourth of the seven signs. A recurring filing fee is unusually easy to put in front of a court: dated receipts, fixed amounts, one line per year, none of the explaining that a lost promotion needs. It will not make a case ripe on its own — the time thresholds are what they are — but in a case that already clears them it is a cost you can document.
When the clock starts, how to pay and what a late payment does are all outside this notice, which sets amounts only. Those procedures come from the interim final rule USCIS issued on 29 April 2026 (91 FR 22952).
What to do
- Posting after 16 October? Check the amount on the day it goes out. The postmark is what decides; the rate on the day you filled the form in does not count. A cheque written at the old rate on 10 October and posted on the 20th arrives $10 short and comes back (example).
- Confirm which category your work permit falls in. Only initial EADs for asylum applicants, parole and TPS go to $570. An EAD based on a pending I-485, or OPT, pays what G-1055 says.
- Filing before 16 October to beat the increase? Check the form edition first. The wrong edition is rejected too, and it destroys the same filing date you were trying to protect. Which edition applies now.
- On a long-pending asylum case, keep the receipt for each annual payment. Date and amount both.
- Already had something rejected? Start the count again. Take the date on the new receipt notice, find your row in the processing-time tables, then check it against the threshold in how long a work permit has to be pending.
If you are not sure whether you are far enough along, the 60-second check works it out from your receipt date.