Travellers from the UAE planning to visit the United States will soon face an additional expense as new legislation mandates a "Visa Integrity Fee" for all nonimmigrant visa applicants. According to the text of H.R. 1, also known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," signed into law, this new fee will add a minimum of $250 to the cost of obtaining a US visa. Gulf News has reviewed the text available on the US Congress website.
Effective from fiscal year 2025, the law stipulates that the Secretary of Homeland Security will require the payment of this Visa Integrity Fee at the time of issuance of any nonimmigrant visa.
The initial fee amount for fiscal year 2025 will be the greater of $250 or an amount that the Secretary of Homeland Security might set through further regulations.
This new fee is in addition to any other fees already authorised by law for US visa applications. The standard fee for most nonimmigrant visas, including visitor visas, is $185.
Applicants typically pay the fees during the visa application process. This fee is applicable for various visa types, including visitor visas for business or tourism (B1/B2 visas). The fee is non-refundable and nonimmigrant (MRV).
Furthermore, the legislation outlines that the visa integrity fee fee will not be a one-time charge at the initial rate. Starting in fiscal year 2026, the Visa Integrity Fee will be subject to annual adjustments based on inflation, the bill has stated.
The increase will be calculated by taking the previous fiscal year's fee and adding the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for July of the preceding year, rounded down to the nearest dollar.
Interestingly, the bill includes a provision for potential reimbursement of the fee. The Secretary of Homeland Security may provide a refund to a nonimmigrant visa holder after their visa expires if they demonstrate that they complied with all the conditions of their visa, including the prohibition of unauthorised employment.
Reimbursement may also be granted if the visa holder did not seek to extend their stay and departed the US within five days after their visa's validity period, or if they were granted an extension of their status or an adjustment to lawful permanent resident status during their stay.
All fees collected under this new mandate, except for those reimbursed, will be deposited into the general fund of the US Treasury. Notably, the legislation explicitly states that the Visa Integrity Fee cannot be waived or reduced under any circumstances.
This new regulation will likely impact a large number of individuals in the UAE who travel to the US for tourism, education, business, or work, adding a notable cost to their travel plans.
Since taking over the US Presidency, Donald Trump's administration has fully suspended all nonimmigrant and immigrant visa issuance to nationals of Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
It has also made it mandatory for visa applicants to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to "facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under US law."
