New USCIS EB-5 Fees Start November 30, 2026: Old and New Amounts and the Postmark Rule

New USCIS fees apply to any EB-5 filing postmarked on or after November 30, 2026: the I-526E goes to $7,850, the I-829 to $5,000 and the Integrity Fund fee to $1,100. A regional center investor who mails an I-526E on or after that date sends $8,950 with it, up from $4,675.

Fees don't change your place in the queue. For that, use Where am I in line?.

Is the date November 29 or November 30?#

November 30. We read the final rule on federalregister.gov, and its DATES line says: "This final rule is effective November 30, 2026." The next sentence says any application, petition or request postmarked on or after that date has to come with the new fees. The rule is 91 FR 61940, and the Federal Register's own record for the document lists the same effective date.

You'll see November 29 in at least one law firm alert, and we think we know where it comes from. The rule was published on September 30, 2026, and later in the same document DHS says it has provided a 60-day delayed effective date. Count 60 days from publication and you land on November 29. The DATES line is the part that controls, though, and it names the 30th.

So November 29 is the last postmark date for the old fees. It's also a Sunday. If you're mailing a paper filing that weekend, don't count on getting a dated postmark that day.

Old and new fees#

The old column is the schedule USCIS reinstated in November 2025 after a court order. The new column is the regulatory text of the final rule, which becomes 8 CFR 106.2(d). The new I-526E and I-526 amounts each include a $75 EB-5 technology fee, so there's nothing extra to add for it.

The rule also adds two line items that didn't have their own fee before. An amendment to an I-526E costs $7,775. A new Form I-527, for investors who filed before the 2022 reform law and need to amend after their regional center is terminated or their project entity is debarred, costs $10,330.

Regional centers pay more too, and it's worth knowing even though the investor doesn't write those checks. Form I-956 goes from $17,795 to $44,115 for a new designation, and Form I-956F goes from $17,795 to $42,675. The annual statement on Form I-956G drops from $3,035 to $2,165. The yearly Integrity Fund fee for a regional center rises from $20,000 to $22,000, or from $10,000 to $11,000 for centers with 20 or fewer investors.

DHS's own estimate in the rule is that fees for existing EB-5 forms go up by about 70.7 percent on a weighted average.

Right now this site's live figures show the I-526E fee at $3,675 and the I-829 fee at $3,750. Those two numbers switch over on November 30.

How the postmark rule works#

The postmark date on the package decides which fee you owe. The date you signed doesn't count, and neither does the date USCIS opens the envelope.

Send the wrong amount and the filing comes back. USCIS says on its Fee Schedule page that a filing with an incorrect fee will be rejected, and under 8 CFR 103.2(a)(7) a rejected filing doesn't keep a filing date. A petition postmarked December 1 with the old amount inside costs you the days it takes to come back and go out again.

The postmark settles the fee and nothing else. The same regulation says USCIS records the receipt date as the day the filing actually arrives. That matters in December, because the minimum investment adjusts for petitions filed on or after January 1, 2027. A package postmarked in the last days of December that arrives in January has a January receipt date.

Each filing is tested on its own postmark. If you filed your I-526E in 2025, your I-829 still pays whatever fee is in force when you mail the I-829.

Don't expect a grace period. When fees went down in November 2025, USCIS said it would also accept the higher amount for a couple of weeks. This time the fees are going up, and the DATES line has no transition window in it.

Total cash at filing#

For a regional center investor, the government money that goes in the envelope with the I-526E is the petition fee plus the Integrity Fund fee. Through November 29 that's $3,675 plus $1,000, or $4,675. From November 30 it's $7,850 plus $1,100, or $8,950. The difference is $4,275.

A standalone investor filing Form I-526 pays $7,615 instead of $3,675. The Integrity Fund fee is tied to regional center petitions, so it isn't part of a direct filing.

At the I-829 stage the fee goes from $3,750 to $5,000. The final rule also rewrites the part of 8 CFR 216.6 that deals with family members. A spouse and children can be included on the investor's I-829. Anyone who isn't included has to file their own petition, and a separate petition carries its own fee.

If you're filing a green card application at the same time, the rule doesn't touch Form I-485 or the work and travel permit forms that go with it. It amends the EB-5 lines of the fee regulation and nothing else. Check those amounts on the USCIS Fee Schedule the week you file.

None of this is the investment itself. The capital is still $800,000 or $1,050,000, and regional center administrative fees and legal fees sit on top of the government fees. The cost calculator and our full cost breakdown add those up.

How we got here#

EB-5 fees have now changed three times since April 2024, which is why old numbers keep showing up in marketing decks.

The 2024 USCIS fee rule raised the I-526E fee to $11,160, and a federal court stayed the EB-5 part of that rule on November 12, 2025, in a case called Moody v. Noem. USCIS went back to the amounts that were in effect before April 2024. Those are the old column in the table above.

Meanwhile DHS had already proposed an EB-5-only fee rule on October 23, 2025, built on the fee study that the 2022 reform law calls for. The September 2026 final rule is the result. It isn't identical to the proposal. DHS reran the numbers with newer data, cut the technology fee from a proposed $95 to $75, and set the Integrity Fund increase at 10 percent based on inflation from 2022 to 2025.

After three changes in under three years, we'd check the fee schedule one more time before you seal the envelope.

Sources#

• Federal Register, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment-Based Immigrant Visa, Fifth Preference (EB-5) Fee Rule, final rule, 91 FR 61940 (DATES line, preamble sections I and III, and the regulatory text at 8 CFR 106.2(d) and 216.6), read November 11, 2026
• USCIS, Court Order on Partial Stay of DHS 2024 USCIS Fee Rule (fees in effect before the final rule)
• USCIS, Form G-1055, Fee Schedule
• 8 CFR 103.2(a)(7), Cornell Legal Information Institute (receipt date and rejected filings)