Increased Supplemental Fees for Certain L1 and H1B Petitions

With the passage of the omnibus appropriations bill that I wrote about here, supplemental feels for L1 (L1A and L1B) and H1B petitions are increasing for companies that:

1. Employ 50 or more employees in the United States; and
2. Have 50 percent of their U.S. workforce in H1B, L1A, or L1B status.

The following are the fee changes:

The fees for L1 petitions will increase from $2,500 to $4,500 for both L1A and L1B.
The fees for H1B petitions will increase from $2,000 to $4,000.

These fees must be paid on both initial and extension petitions.

There are reports that the Department of State (DOS) is starting to collect the new fees in connection with affected L blanket petitions.

It is still unclear how the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will collect the new fee and how it will treat cases that were already in route to USCIS at the time that the fee went into effect.

We will update the immigration blog when there is more information regarding USCIS's implementation of the increased supplemental fees for certain L1 and H1B petitions.

Resources and Materials:

“Practice Alert: L-1 and H-1B Supplemental Fee Increases,” (Dec. 22, 2015), published on AILA InfoNet at Doc. No. 15122202