For most of its history, applying for asylum in the United States cost nothing. That ended on July 22, 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21 and better known as H.R. 1, wrote a set of immigration fees directly into statute, and USCIS began collecting them by Federal Register notice that day.
The design is unusual and worth understanding precisely. The H.R. 1 charges are not replacements for the existing filing fees. They sit on top of them, are paid separately, and cannot be waived under any circumstances. The ordinary USCIS fee can still be waived with Form I-912. The H.R. 1 fee cannot.
The schedule
- Asylum application, Form I-589: $100. Previously free.
- Annual Asylum Fee: $100 for every calendar year an I-589 stays pending at USCIS. More on this below.
- Initial work permit, Form I-765: $550 for asylum applicants (category c8), parolees (c11 and related), and TPS holders and applicants (a12, c19).
- Work permit renewal in those categories: $275. A work permit tied to re-parole counts as a renewal even if you never held one.
- TPS registration, Form I-821: the statutory ceiling rose from $50 to $500. The $30 biometrics fee is separate and still waivable.
- Special Immigrant Juvenile petition, Form I-360: $250. Previously free.
The fees stack. An online I-765 renewal for a pending asylum applicant is now the $470 base fee plus $275, so $745. An initial TPS work permit filed online is $470 plus $550, or $1,020. These are the fiscal year 2025 amounts; the statute indexes them to inflation every year.
There is one further change that matters as much as the money. Initial parole work permits, and all TPS work permits, are now issued for no more than one year, or for the length of the parole or TPS period if that is shorter. Renewals will come around faster and each one carries the $275 charge.
The transition
Filings postmarked on or after July 22, 2025 owe the fee. USCIS allowed a grace period of one month, then began rejecting any form postmarked on or after August 21, 2025 that arrived without it. A rejected filing is treated as never filed, which for an asylum application with a one-year deadline is not a small consequence.
The annual fee, explained
The Annual Asylum Fee is the piece most people have not encountered before. It applies to anyone whose asylum application was pending at USCIS for the whole of the fiscal year from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025, and to any application filed after October 1, 2024 that remains pending for 365 days. From then on it is charged on each anniversary of the filing.
You do not need to calculate your own due date. USCIS sends an individual notice stating the amount, the payment window and the consequence of not paying. Payment is online only, through the USCIS Annual Asylum Fee portal on Pay.gov, by card or bank transfer. USCIS does not refund it.
Notably, the July notice set no penalty for non-payment. As of early September 2025 no formal consequence has been published. That is not an invitation to ignore the notice. The agency has ample discretion over a pending case, and the statute contemplates enforcement even if the mechanics are still being written.
Who is exempt
Very few. Members of the Ms. L. settlement class, the families separated at the border in 2017 and 2018, and qualifying additional family members are processed without the asylum fee, but only if they file on paper with that designation written on the first page of the I-589. Everyone else pays.
What to do
- Pay both fees, separately, with every affected filing. A fee waiver request covers the base fee only; enclose the H.R. 1 payment alongside it.
- If your asylum case has been pending more than a year, watch the mail and your USCIS online account for the annual fee notice. Pay by the date it gives and keep the receipt.
- Budget for shorter work permit validity. A one-year card means an early renewal, filed as soon as the rules permit, with $275 attached each time.
The immigration courts run a parallel H.R. 1 fee regime for cases before a judge. That schedule is administered by EOIR, not USCIS, and its mechanics are outside the scope of this piece. No court had blocked the USCIS fees as of this writing.