Is the annual asylum fee going up again? The USCIS asylum fee rises to $105 on October 16

How much is the annual asylum fee now?

You're waiting on an asylum decision, and every year the wait now comes with a bill. On October 1, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice raising that bill, the annual asylum fee, from $102 to $105 for applications pending with USCIS. The notice says the new fees are "effective on or after October 16, 2026," and that any request postmarked on or after that date "without the proper filing fee will be rejected." USCIS's own announcement calls the adjustments "minor" and says they "account for inflation from July 2025 through July 2026."

The fee to file a new asylum application stays at $100. Once inflation was added, that fee came to $103.36, and the law rounds it down to the nearest $10. The annual fee is rounded down only to the nearest dollar, which is why it moves by $3. From October 16, the annual fee plus a first work permit comes to $675, up from $662, as Newsweek calculated. These are the fees H.R. 1 created, and the law charges them on top of any other filing fee a form already carries.

Why the USCIS asylum fee goes up every year

The fee comes from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, known as H.R. 1, signed on July 4, 2025. It set a yearly fee of at least $100 for every calendar year an asylum application "remains pending," and it ordered the government to raise the amount each year with inflation. USCIS announced how it would collect the fee on July 22, 2025. The first increase, from $100 to $102, took effect on January 1, 2026. This is the second.

The math is fixed by the law. USCIS compares consumer prices in July of one year with July of the year before. Prices rose 3.36 percent between July 2025 and July 2026, so $102 became $105.43, rounded down to $105. Most other H.R. 1 fees are rounded down to the nearest $10, so some went up by $10 and others did not move. Envoy Global, an immigration services company, listed the same four increases for USCIS filings.

A much larger payment comes from a presidential proclamation, not this law, and the fight is still in court over whether H-1B employers have to pay the $100,000 fee now that it runs to 2027.

$105

annual asylum fee at USCIS from October 16, 2026

3.36%

rise in consumer prices, July 2025 to July 2026

$570

first asylum work permit fee from October 16, 2026

Who has to pay, and when the fee is due

You owe the fee if your asylum application has been pending for a year, whether it sits with USCIS, an immigration court or the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The April 2026 rule that wrote the fee into USCIS regulations describes two groups. If you filed with USCIS on or before October 1, 2024, and your case was still pending on September 30, 2025, the fee comes due on September 30 of each later year the case stays open. If you filed after October 1, 2024, it comes due each year on the anniversary of your filing date, once the case has been pending 365 days.

Under the rule, DHS sends each applicant a notice saying the fee is due, when it is due and how to pay, and the fee must be paid within 30 days of the date the notice is sent. The law does not allow the fee to be waived, so there is no fee waiver request to file for it. The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), a group that is suing over the fee, reports that some people never got a notice and learned the fee was due only by checking online.

ASAP says USCIS charges one fee per application, not one per person: a family of four on a single Form I-589 pays once, and family members who each filed their own application each pay. The fee does not reach people asking only for withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture: the Board of Immigration Appeals held in July 2026 that the fee and the consequences for not paying it do not extend to those requests, as the Maryland ruling notes. ASAP reports that some people have been ordered to pay anyway.

How to pay the annual asylum fee: USCIS, immigration court and the BIA

Where you pay depends on where your case is. For a case at USCIS, the April 2026 rule says the fee must be paid online through the agency's electronic payment system, after USCIS sends your notice.

Immigration court works on a different calendar. The Justice Department office that runs the courts, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), raised its annual asylum fee to $105 for filings on or after October 1, 2026, the first day of the government's fiscal year. That is two weeks before the USCIS change. Since June 2026, fees in court cases are paid directly to EOIR, and EOIR says it will update its website and payment portal with the new amounts. Its rule repeats that the annual fee "cannot be waived or reduced."

The gap matters if you were sent a Notice to Appear and your case moved from USCIS to a judge. The amount, the deadline and the place to pay all follow the court, not USCIS. An immigration lawyer can tell you which office has your case when the paperwork isn't clear.

What happens if you miss the annual asylum fee deadline

A court has changed what happens when you miss the deadline, at least for now. The April 2026 rule, which took effect on May 29, 2026, said that if you don't pay within 30 days of your notice, USCIS rejects your asylum application. Under the rule, a rejection also ends any work permit based on the pending application right away, and if you have no other lawful status, DHS starts removal (deportation) proceedings.

On August 5, 2026, Senior U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton in Boston stopped USCIS from applying those penalties. In a suit brought by ASAP, the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, the National TPS Alliance and two unions, he found the groups "likely to prevail" on their claim that the April 2026 rule is "procedurally invalid with respect to those consequences," because USCIS skipped public comment on a rule that affects people's rights. He wrote that "these specific consequences are not required by the statute." His order "stays the implementation of that policy until the Court issues a final ruling on the merits of the case," and he said the relief is not limited to the groups that sued.

The order has limits. It leaves the fee itself in place. The judge wrote that having no consequences at all for not paying "may indeed render the fee a nullity," meaning a fee nobody has to pay, and the pause runs only until his final ruling. It covers the USCIS rule, and it does not address immigration court. There, ASAP says, a judge will probably deny or dismiss the asylum part of a case when the fee isn't paid by the judge's deadline.

A second case covers immigration court. On September 22, 2026, U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Maryland set aside the memo and the template order EOIR gave immigration judges for charging the fee. She held them unlawful "for failing to address and consider the compliance problems created by EOIR's receipt requirement," and found the template order wrongly suggested that judges may dismiss withholding and Convention Against Torture claims over an unpaid fee. She ruled for the government on ASAP's other claims, so the fee itself stands. The Maryland docket, as last updated on September 29, 2026, showed the case closed and no appeal filed so far, though the time to appeal has not run out, and ASAP says it does not yet know what immigration courts will change.

The groups appealed the parts of the ruling they lost. The district court docket, as last updated on September 24, 2026, showed no appeal by the government, and the First Circuit has given the groups until October 30, 2026 to file their brief. Other immigration fights are moving through the courts at the same time, including the Supreme Court order that lets ICE deport people to a country they're not from for now.

Other immigration fees that change on October 16

Two more Homeland Security notices published the same day raise fees for people outside the asylum process. The fee charged each time someone is granted parole into the United States goes from $1,020 to $1,050, and, unless one of the law's exceptions applies, it is collected from anyone granted parole on or after October 16, 2026, "regardless of when the underlying application or request was submitted." The travel authorization for visa-free visitors, called ESTA, rises from $40.27 to $40.62. The I-94 arrival record fee at land borders stays at $30.

The largest jump is for enforcement. The fee for a person ordered removed after missing a hearing and later arrested by ICE, and the fee for a person apprehended between ports of entry, each go from $5,130 to $5,300. The notice says no waivers are available for the first of those fees. The green card lottery has its own court fight: a 2027 green card lottery lawsuit asks a judge to make the State Department open a registration it never started.

How the fee got from $100 to $105

1. July 4, 2025

   The One Big Beautiful Bill Act becomes law, with a yearly fee of at least $100 on every pending asylum application.

2. July 22, 2025

   USCIS announces how it will collect the new fees, including the annual asylum fee.

3. January 1, 2026

   The first inflation increase takes effect: the annual asylum fee goes from $100 to $102.

4. April 29, 2026

   DHS publishes a rule setting penalties for not paying within 30 days of a notice. It takes effect May 29.

5. August 5, 2026

   A federal judge in Boston pauses those penalties until the court's final ruling.

6. September 22, 2026

   A federal judge in Maryland sets aside the memo and template order immigration courts used to charge the fee. The fee stays.

7. October 1, 2026

   The annual asylum fee in immigration court becomes $105, and DHS publishes its own increases.

8. October 16, 2026

   The annual asylum fee at USCIS becomes $105, and a first asylum work permit becomes $570.

What to check before your fee is due

A few of these answers depend on your own file, and the court order could change. This is general information, not legal advice. If you don't have a lawyer and want one, we can help you find one.

1. Where your case is today: USCIS, an immigration court or the Board of Immigration Appeals. Each has its own amount, date and way to pay.
2. The date on your annual asylum fee notice, since the 30 days run from the day the notice is sent.
3. The amount shown when you pay. The October 1 fee announcement does not say how USCIS treats a $102 notice that is paid on or after October 16.
4. The address USCIS or the court has for you, because the rule relies on a notice to tell you the fee is due.
5. Your receipt or other proof of payment, and whether the court in your case still asks you to file it.
6. The postmark date on any first work permit, parole or Temporary Protected Status filing going out around October 16.
7. The Boston case, No. 26-13038, for a final ruling that could end the pause on USCIS's penalties.