Green Card Fees Set to Rise for Foreign Investors Under New Rule Starting November 30

Foreign investors pursuing U.S. permanent residence through the EB-5 immigrant investor program will pay sharply higher filing fees under a new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The revised fees take effect November 30, 2026.

The new schedule covers the nine existing EB-5 forms and, according to DHS, will affect roughly 16,600 EB-5 filings each year. Across those forms, the department calculated a weighted average fee increase of about 70.7 percent — approximately $2,946 more per filing — with the exact change varying by form and any additional charges that apply.

The headline increase falls on the Form I-526 petition used by standalone investors, which rises from $3,675 to $7,615. The new amount includes a $75 technology fee that DHS says will support improvements to the USCIS systems used to process, adjudicate and archive EB-5 filings. Fees for the other forms in the program, including those used by regional centers, also increase under the rule, by amounts that vary by form.

The EB-5 program allows eligible foreign investors to seek permanent residence by investing at least $1.05 million in a qualifying U.S. business, or at least $800,000 in a targeted employment area or infrastructure project, while creating at least 10 full-time jobs.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the program, is funded largely by applicant fees rather than congressional appropriations, and DHS said the new schedule is intended to recover the costs of administering EB-5. The changes come as the Trump administration has sought greater control over legal immigration, including changes to visa and green card programs, and the higher charges will add thousands of dollars in government fees for some applicants on top of the investment the program already requires.

The effective-date rule works by postmark: applications, petitions and requests postmarked on or after November 30 must include the new fees, while filings postmarked before that date remain subject to the fee schedule in effect when they were sent. Investors who are ready to file can therefore lock in the current fees by submitting — and postmarking — their applications before November 30. The full form-by-form schedule is set out in the Federal Register notice announcing the rule.