US immigration-court filing fees rise again on 1 October 2026

The US Department of Justice published a final rule on 21 August 2026 raising the fees charged for filings with the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency that runs the immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals. From 1 October 2026, appealing an immigration judge's decision will cost $1,060, asking a judge to reopen or reconsider a case will cost $1,095, and applying for cancellation of removal and adjustment of status as a non-permanent resident will cost $1,690. The rise itself is modest, 3.4 percent applied to one component of each fee, but it is the second annual increase in a schedule that a 2025 budget law had already multiplied several times over, and it applies to anything filed on or after the first day of the new fiscal year.

Background

The fees come from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the budget reconciliation bill that became law on 4 July 2025 as Public Law 119-21. Alongside its tax and spending provisions, that law created a new set of immigration-related charges for filings with the immigration courts, layered on top of the much smaller fees that already existed under section 286(m) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Before the law, a notice of appeal from an immigration judge's decision cost $110. The Act added a separate charge on top, now $950, so the same appeal costs close to ten times what it did in mid-2025. The Act also instructed the Attorney General to raise these charges every year in line with inflation, which is what this rule does. It is the second such adjustment: the first, covering the 2026 fiscal year, was published on 21 January 2026 and took effect on 1 February.

What exactly changed

The Act prescribes the arithmetic rather than leaving it to the department's judgement. Each fee is recalculated by taking the amount that applied in the fiscal year just ending and adding the percentage by which the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose in July compared with July a year earlier, then rounding down to the nearest $10. The rule states that the relevant figure, July 2026 against July 2025, is 3.4 percent. One charge, the Annual Asylum Fee, is rounded down to the nearest dollar instead. Because the department is bound to apply that formula, the rule was issued as final without a notice-and-comment period, on the ground that the changes are ministerial. The amounts below are the totals, combining the new figure with the pre-existing statutory fee, and they exclude any biometrics charge.

Who it affects

This reaches anyone whose immigration status is being decided in court rather than at a service centre, which is a wider group than it sounds. Someone who has lived in the United States for more than ten years, has US citizen children and is asking a judge for cancellation of removal files the EOIR-42B, now $1,690 for a single application. Someone who lost before an immigration judge and wants the Board to look again pays $1,060, and pays it at the moment of filing rather than at the end. Someone who missed a hearing because a notice went to an old address and wants the resulting order undone files a motion to reopen, now $1,095 before a judge. A family with two adults each filing their own application faces the fee twice, because these are charged per filing, not per household.

What this means in practice

The date is the lever. The rule is explicit that the new amounts apply to filings made with the immigration courts or the Board on or after 1 October 2026, so a case that is genuinely ready to file gains nothing by waiting and loses between $20 and $50 per filing by drifting past the end of September. That is a small saving on its own and a real one across a family or a set of related motions, but it should never justify filing something incomplete, since a weak filing costs far more than the difference. The rule leaves the fee waiver system untouched, which matters more than the increase for anyone who cannot pay: waivers and fee exceptions continue to work exactly as they did. It also warns that EOIR will keep rejecting filings that arrive without either the correct fee or a proper waiver request, so a payment that is $30 short after 1 October is a rejected filing, not a partially paid one. Confirm the current amount on EOIR's own fee page or the EOIR Payment Portal on the day you file. Our United States country guide at /country-guides/united-states covers the wider status and residence framework, and an accredited representative or immigration attorney remains the right source on an individual case.

What the rule does not change

Three limits are worth noting. The rule does not touch the fees set under section 286(m) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which are the smaller, older component bundled into each total above. It does not alter any fee exception or waiver. And it does not set the fees for application forms published by the Department of Homeland Security, such as the work permit application, even when EOIR collects them: those are governed by separate regulations and are updated on EOIR's website and payment portal rather than in this rule. Anyone budgeting for a case that involves both court filings and DHS forms should price the two separately.