The price does not move. The question is who owes it — and DHS has not spelled that out.
The Department of Homeland Security is amending its rules for the 9-11 Response and Biometric Entry-Exit Fee, the surcharge Congress attached to certain H-1B and L-1 petitions. DHS says the change will "correct DHS's interpretation of statutory language" covering which employers owe the fee and which filings trigger it. It does not say what the old reading was or what the new one is. The document is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on Monday, August 10, 2026. Under the statute, the fee reaches a petitioner that employs 50 or more people in the United States when more than half of those workers hold H-1B or L nonimmigrant status. The amounts hold at $4,000 for a covered H-1B petition and $4,500 for a covered L-1, the levels set by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016.
What the notice leaves open
- Which employers and which filings move into scope, and which move out.
- Whether this is a final rule, an interim rule, or a proposal open for comment.
- The effective date.
- Whether it reaches petitions already pending at USCIS.
What an employer already pays per worker, before this fee
- Form I-129 petition fee: $780 for most employers, $460 for small firms and nonprofits, under the 2024 USCIS fee schedule.
- ACWIA training fee: $1,500 for employers with more than 25 workers, $750 for smaller ones — on the books since 1998.
- Fraud prevention and detection fee: $500 on an initial H-1B or L-1 petition.
- H-1B lottery registration: $215 per worker entered, up from $10 before March 2024 — about 21 times the old rate.
- Premium processing, for a decision in 15 business days: $2,805 as of February 2024.
Stack those together and a premium-processed hire at a large employer runs about $5,800 before the surcharge. The surcharge adds $4,000 on top of that.
Donald Trump (Pres-R Florida) added a separate $100,000 payment on certain new H-1B petitions by proclamation in September 2025 — roughly 17 times that routine stack. It came from the White House, not from Congress, and this DHS notice does not touch it. Which new petitions it reaches, and whether it is being collected today, is not established here.
The 9-11 surcharge doubled by 2016 — then held for a decade
The chart tracks the surcharge itself: $2,000 and $2,250 when Congress set it in 2010, $4,000 and $4,500 since the 2016 appropriations act. That price is the one part of the fee this notice leaves alone.