Application Fee Increase for a Green Card
The cost of getting a green card — may be going up, as the Obama administration has proposed increasing the application fee for a green card — given to foreigners with permission to live and work in the US permanently — from $930 to $985. The fee for required fingerprinting also would go up $5 to $85, for a total of $1,070.
Foreigners wanting to become a U.S. citizen must have held a green card for five years before they are eligible to apply for US citizenship, which costs $595 plus the fingerprinting fee. In other cases, such as when a foreigner plans to marry an American citizen, the wait time is not three years before they are eligible to apply for American citizenship.
The administration is not proposing an increase in the citizenship application fee even though a government study found the fee should be increased as much as $60 an application — to cover the full cost of processing those applications.
