It’s not cheap! Each USCIS form has a filing fee attached to it. For an H-1B petition, Form I-129 is used (Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker). The filing fee for the I-129 is $460. There is an additional fee of either $750 or $1500, depending on how many employees your new employer has on staff. In addition, an “anti-fraud” fee of $500 is attached to each new H-1B filing (including your change of employer petition). You, the H-1B employee, are not allowed to pay any of these fees! The employer is required to pay the filing fees, and also the legal fees (if applicable).

If you are married, and your spouse will need an extension of status in H-4, the form is Form I-539 (Application to Change or Extend Nonimmigrant Status), and its filing fee is $370. Some employers will cover this fee (and any legal fee associated with preparing the extension for the employee’s family). But you are allowed to pay this fee; and some employers insist that an H-1B employee pay the filing fee, or both the filing fee and the legal fee for a family member in dependent status (H-4). You should ask up-front when you have accepted the employment offer what the employer’s policy is for dependents and be prepared to pay those fees if required. (By the way, if your spouse wants to study in the U.S. while you are in H-1B status, this is the form they would file to change their status to F-1.)

If you and your spouse have children born abroad, there is no additional filing fee to extend their status with your spouse’s – they will be part of your spouse’s H-4 application. 

If you want to have your H-1B petition adjudicated under the “premium processing” program, you may pay that filing fee, which is $2500. You can pay the fee by personal check or using a credit card (USCIS Form 1450), but your fee should be submitted with the petition to the USCIS attached to the form requesting premium processing (Form I-907). The advantage to this is that the USCIS must adjudicate the petition within 15 days of receipt. 

Why would you spend so much money for a quick answer from the USCIS? Because the regular processing time for an H-1B can be as long as six months! Note that your status will not expire while the petition is in process, but, because for most people in H-1B and H-4 status, the validity of their state driver’s license is attached to the validity of their petition or their I-94 document, their state driver’s license might expire while the petition is still processing. You should check the website of your state Department of Motor Vehicles for answers to specific questions on this topic.

You might also pay this additional fee if you have planned travel that cannot be postponed. If you leave the U.S. while an H-1B or H-4 is still processing, the USCIS considers the petition or application as “abandoned.” If that happens, all those filing fees are gone, and the petition won’t be adjudicated, leaving you outside the U.S. and out of luck.

There was recently some very good news about processing times for H-4 petitions: if your H-1B is submitted under premium processing with your family’s H-4, both packages will be processed together. This was the case for many years, until a few years ago when biometrics processing was attached to H-4 applications, “detaching” them from their H-1Bs, which created long delays and much frustration. Biometrics were removed from H-4 applications recently, and now families of H-1B workers will benefit from a return to previous processing procedures.