A family-based consular processing case that starts with an online Form I-130 and ends with a green card in the mail costs $1,305 per immigrant in mandatory government fees, split across three separate payments to two different agencies. The clock is the harder number. USCIS took a median of 12.5 months to decide an immediate-relative I-130 in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 and 39.4 months for every other family category, and that is before the Department of State’s National Visa Center has touched the file.
This guide walks the whole sequence in the order a real case moves: petition approval, NVC case creation, fee invoicing, DS-260, document upload, documentarily qualified status, interview scheduling, the interview itself, visa issuance, port of entry, and green card production. Every fee below is quoted from the legal fee schedules that authorize it, not from a summary.
Two agencies bill you, and they bill you at different moments. USCIS collects the petition fee at the front of the case and the USCIS Immigrant Fee at the very back, after your visa is already in your passport. The State Department collects two fees in the middle, through the National Visa Center, and only accepts them by direct debit from a U.S. bank account. Paying the wrong fee at the wrong stage is one of the most common and most expensive errors in the process, because a misrouted payment is not automatically refunded and does not advance your case.
Free toolUSCIS Receipt Number DecoderConsular processing is the path for applicants who are outside the United States, or who are inside but ineligible to adjust status. The alternative, adjustment of status, keeps the case entirely with USCIS. If you are still choosing between the two, read our breakdown of the differences between adjustment of status and consular processing and our timing comparison of which route is faster for a marriage green card before you commit.
One structural point governs everything that follows: NVC schedules interviews first in, first out from appointment slots the embassy hands it, and for numerically limited preference categories your priority date must also be current on the monthly Visa Bulletin before an appointment can be issued. A documentarily perfect file with a retrogressed priority date sits still. Our monthly Visa Bulletin analysis and the month-over-month key differences breakdown track those cutoffs.
Three timing figures below come from the NVC Timeframes page, which State updates weekly. The numbers quoted here are from the July 6, 2026 update and are illustrative of the current queue, not permanent. Check the live page before you draw conclusions about your own case.
The full fee ladder
All State Department fees below are set by the Schedule of Fees for Consular Services at 22 CFR 22.1. The USCIS figures come from Form G-1055, edition 05/29/26, the agency’s own fee schedule. Nothing here is an estimate.
| Form I-130 petition, filed online (USCIS, petitioner pays) | $625 |
| Form I-130 petition, filed on paper (USCIS, petitioner pays) | $675 |
| Immigrant visa application processing fee, immediate relative and family preference (NVC, per applicant) | $325 |
| Affidavit of Support review fee (NVC, once per case) | $120 |
| USCIS Immigrant Fee (USCIS, per person, paid after visa issuance) | $235 |
| Total with online I-130 | $1,305 |
| Total with paper I-130 | $1,355 |
| Form I-140 petition, filed online (USCIS, employer or self-petitioner) | $665 |
| Form I-140 petition, filed on paper (USCIS) | $715 |
| Immigrant visa application processing fee, employment-based (NVC, per applicant) | $345 |
| Affidavit of Support review fee (only if an I-864 is required and NVC reviews it) | $120 |
| USCIS Immigrant Fee (USCIS, per person, paid after visa issuance) | $235 |
| Total with online I-140, no I-864 required | $1,245 |
| Other immigrant visa applications, including I-360 self-petitioners and special immigrants | $205 |
| Diversity Visa application fee (paid at the interview, not to NVC) | $330 |
| Diversity Visa lottery registration fee | $1 |
| K-1 fiance visa application processing fee | $265 |
| Determining returning resident status (SB-1) | $180 |
| Certain Iraqi and Afghan special immigrant visa applications | $0 |
The $250 Visa Integrity Fee created by Public Law 119-21 applies, by the plain text of the statute, to “any alien issued a nonimmigrant visa.” Immigrant visa applicants are outside its scope. Do not budget for it on a green card case.
Costs the government does not set and this guide will not guess at: the panel physician’s medical examination, which is priced by the physician and varies enormously by country, civil documents and police certificates, certified translations, and courier delivery. The consulate’s own website lists its approved panel physicians and their current charges. Budget for these separately and do not treat any third-party quote you find online as authoritative for your post.
USCIS Approves the Petition
Nothing consular happens until USCIS approves the underlying petition and issues the I-797 approval notice. This is by far the longest single block of time in the process for family cases, and USCIS publishes the numbers itself.
In fiscal year 2026, quarter two, covering January 1 through March 31, 2026, USCIS reported a median processing time of 12.5 months for I-130 petitions in the immediate relative category, against 761,638 pending. The all-other-relative category, meaning the family preference queues, ran at 39.4 months with 1,597,832 pending. Form I-140 came in at 3.4 months. Form I-129F, the fiance petition, was 7.5 months.
Those are medians across the whole agency, not a promise about your receipt number. But the gap between 12.5 and 39.4 months is the single largest lever on your total timeline, and it is decided by which family category you fall into, not by anything you can do faster.
The Case Reaches NVC and Gets Created
After approval, USCIS transfers the petition to the National Visa Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Most cases move electronically. State warns that USCIS still mails some paper petitions, and that transit alone can take two to three weeks before NVC has anything to work with.
NVC then creates the case, enters the petition data, and sends a Welcome Letter by email containing your Case Number and Invoice ID. Those two numbers are your login to the Consular Electronic Application Center at ceac.state.gov, and you will need them at every later stage. Keep the Welcome Letter.
NVC publishes its own queue depth weekly. As of the July 6, 2026 update, NVC was creating cases it had received from USCIS on June 24, 2026, a lag of about twelve days. The same page showed NVC responding to public inquiry form submissions received on June 24, 2026.
The NVC Timeframes page is the only official source for how far behind NVC currently is. It refreshes weekly and covers case creation, document review, and inquiry response times separately.
Pay the Two NVC Fees
The first thing to do after the Welcome Letter arrives is pay. There are two NVC fees and they behave differently. The immigrant visa application processing fee is charged per applicant: a spouse and two children means three fees. The Affidavit of Support review fee is charged once per case, no matter how many derivatives are on it.
NVC accepts payment only by direct debit from a U.S. bank account. It does not take credit cards, does not take personal checks, does not take payments mailed in, and does not take payment from a bank abroad. All payments must be in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank. If you do not have one, the petitioner or an attorney can pay on your behalf: anyone with the CEAC login can.
You cannot pay both fees in one transaction. CEAC forces them through separately, so expect two debits. On your statement they appear as NVC AOS FEE and NVC IV FEE. Payments are processed by the Treasury through the Immigrant Visa Invoice Payment Center.
Then wait. The bank takes two to three business days to clear, during which CEAC shows the status as In Process. After that, State asks for ten calendar days for NVC to process the fees. Form DS-260 stays locked until the fees post.
- Applicants credited with 40 qualifying quarters of work under the Social Security Act
- Children who acquire U.S. citizenship automatically on entry under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000
- Any applicant not required to file an Affidavit of Support at all
- Cases where the I-130 was filed abroad and the affidavit is reviewed at post, not domestically
If CEAC invoices you for an Affidavit of Support fee you are exempt from, contact NVC before paying. State says so explicitly. A fee paid in error is not simply refunded on request.
File DS-261 and DS-260
Form DS-261 is the online choice of address and agent. It tells NVC who it should correspond with. Form DS-260 is the immigrant visa application itself, and every traveling applicant on the case must complete their own, including children. NVC will not treat a case as reviewable until all DS-260s are in.
DS-260 unlocks only after the fees post, which is why paying early matters more than it looks. The form asks for a full address and employment history, every previous U.S. entry, and detailed security questions. Answers carry into the interview, and a consular officer will read back inconsistencies.
Our companion guide to Forms DS-260 and DS-261 in NVC processing covers the question-by-question detail.
Upload Civil and Financial Documents
NVC reviews four categories of material: the DS-261, the DS-260, the Affidavit of Support with its supporting financial evidence, and the civil documents. Civil documents means birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce or death certificates ending prior marriages, court and prison records where applicable, military records, and police certificates from every country where the rules require one.
Under the electronic process, the petitioner and applicant upload digital images to CEAC and NVC ingests them into the case record. The consular section can download the file at least 30 days before the interview is scheduled. Nothing you upload replaces the paper: the appointment letter states plainly that you must bring the original civil documents to the interview, and applicants who show up without originals delay their own case.
- Form DS-261, Online Choice of Address and Agent
- Form DS-260 for every traveling applicant
- Form I-864 Affidavit of Support, signed and free of critical errors
- Supporting financial evidence from every sponsor
- Civil documents meeting the country rules in the Visa Reciprocity and Country Documents Finder
- All required police certificates
- Both NVC fees paid and posted
Documentarily Qualified
When NVC finishes its review and finds nothing missing, it emails you that the case is documentarily complete, commonly called documentarily qualified or DQ. That email date is the one that matters for everything downstream, because interview scheduling runs off it.
As of the July 6, 2026 NVC update, NVC was reviewing documents that had been submitted on June 10, 2026, a lag of about 26 days. A first review that turns up errors resets you to the back of that queue, which is why a clean first submission is worth more than a fast one.
The Foreign Affairs Manual describes two review standards. Under the older minimally qualified path, a case containing all fees paid, a signed I-864, a completed DS-260 for every traveling applicant, and all required police certificates gets scheduled after two NVC reviews even if it still has gaps, with an assessment letter telling the officer what to collect at the interview. Under the Fully Qualified process, which applies to all cases running on State’s PIVOT system, NVC will not schedule anything until every fee, form, civil document, and item of financial evidence is in and accurate. On a Fully Qualified case there is no cap on how many requests for evidence NVC will send.
Do not let a year pass without contacting NVC before you are documentarily complete. If it does, every fee, form, and document you submitted expires and the case enters pre-termination. Logging into CEAC updates your contact date. Once you are documentarily complete, the requirement stops applying.
Separately, INA section 203(g) requires the Secretary of State to terminate the registration of anyone who fails to apply for an immigrant visa within one year of notice of visa availability. Reinstatement is possible within two years if you show the failure was beyond your control, but the priority date is at risk in the meantime.
Interview Scheduling and the Consulate Wait
This is the stage nobody can give you a straight number for, and it is worth understanding exactly why. NVC does not own the calendar. The embassy or consulate tells NVC which dates it is holding immigrant visa interviews, and NVC fills those slots first in, first out using the Enterprise Appointment Management System. If a post releases fewer slots, every documentarily qualified case behind it waits longer, and NVC has no ability to change that.
State’s published aim is that NVC “strives to schedule appointments within three months of NVC’s acceptance of all requested documentation,” while stating in the same breath that the timeframe is subject to the operating status and capacity of the consular section. For a preference category there is a second gate: your priority date must be current on the Visa Bulletin before any appointment can issue.
There is one official instrument for this and it is not the one most people reach for. The Visa Appointment Wait Times tool covers nonimmigrant visa categories. For immigrant visas, State runs a separate Immigrant Visa Scheduling Status Tool, which asks you to pick an embassy or consulate and returns the documentarily complete month and year for which NVC is currently scheduling most interviews in your classification at that post. It updates monthly. Compare the month shown against your own DQ month and you have a real estimate. The tool does not cover Diversity Visa cases, which the Kentucky Consular Center handles instead.
State does not publish a clean DQ-to-interview number per consulate, so the bands below are a way to read what the tool tells you, not a schedule. They describe patterns, not entitlements, and any individual post can move between tiers within a single quarter.
| Tier | What the post looks like | What the tool typically shows |
|---|---|---|
| At target | Small or mid-sized immigrant visa unit, routine operations, no category throttle | Scheduling a DQ month roughly one to three months back |
| High volume | Large national caseload, immediate relatives still moving, preference cases stacked behind them | Scheduling a DQ month several months back, often longer for preference categories |
| Capacity constrained | Reduced immigrant visa staffing, or a preference category whose priority date only just became current | Scheduling a DQ month well over a year back |
| Suspended or relocated | Consular section not performing routine immigrant visa services, or work moved to a designated alternate post | Not usable. NVC states it cannot predict when routine services resume |
If your post is in the last tier, the operating status of the consular section is published at usembassy.gov, not by NVC. That is the page to watch, and NVC explicitly says it cannot forecast when a section will resume routine services.
Medical Exam, Interview, Issuance, and the Last Fee
Do not book the medical examination before NVC schedules your interview. Panel physician results are valid for six months in normal circumstances and as little as three months with certain medical conditions, and you can be refused entry at the port if the exam expires before you arrive. The appointment letter tells you which physicians the post accepts.
Only applicants attend the interview. The petitioner does not have to be there. Derivatives who are following to join later are interviewed separately and do not need to appear at your appointment. Bring the original civil documents you uploaded to CEAC. If the immigrant visa application processing fee has not been paid by interview day, expect to pay it at the window, and check with the post first about which payment methods it takes.
If the visa is approved, the post tells you how and when your passport comes back with the visa foil inside. Check the printed biographic data immediately and report any spelling error to the post at once. An immigrant visa is usually valid for up to six months from issuance, or less if your medical examination expires sooner.
The final $235 USCIS Immigrant Fee is paid to USCIS online, after you collect the visa and before you travel. It funds processing of the immigrant visa packet and production of the physical Permanent Resident Card. You can pay it after arrival instead, but USCIS will not issue a green card until it is paid. Children entering under the orphan or Hague adoption programs, Iraqi and Afghan special immigrants, returning residents on SB-1 visas, and K nonimmigrants are exempt.
At the port of entry you are admitted as a lawful permanent resident, and CBP places a temporary I-551 stamp in your passport. Give the CBP officer your correct U.S. mailing address if it changed since the interview, because that is the address USCIS mails the card to. If the card has not arrived within 90 days of paying the fee or entering the country, USCIS asks you to file an online help request. Non-payment does not strip your status, but it leaves you with only the I-551 stamp as evidence of it, and that stamp is good for one year from admission.
State’s own instruction: do not sell your house or car, resign your job, or buy non-refundable flights until the immigrant visa is physically in your hands. Approval at the window is not the same as issuance.
If the officer cannot conclude you are eligible at the interview, the application is refused under INA section 221(g) and may go into administrative processing. State asks applicants to wait at least 180 days from the interview or from the date supplemental documents were submitted, whichever is later, before inquiring, except in genuine emergencies involving serious illness, injury, or a death in the immediate family.
Expediting: What NVC Will Actually Consider
The published NVC expedite ground is narrower than the advice circulating online. Two conditions have to hold at once. First, a visa must be available for the category, meaning an immediate relative case or a preference case whose priority date is current. If no visa number is available, NVC states there is nothing it can do, because visa availability is fixed by the Immigration and Nationality Act and no provision lets State issue a visa to someone for whom one is unavailable. Second, the case must involve a life-or-death medical emergency.
The request goes to [email protected] as a scanned letter or statement from a physician or medical facility. The letter must include the physician’s or facility’s contact information and must declare that a life-or-death medical emergency exists. Put only the case or receipt number in the subject line. In the body, include at least one of these: the petitioner’s name and date of birth, the beneficiary’s name and date of birth, or the Invoice ID.
Once a case has transferred from NVC to the embassy or consulate, NVC is no longer the right audience. Post-specific expedite procedures are published by each embassy, and broader humanitarian grounds are considered at post discretion. Direct those requests to the consular section, not to NVC.
Physician letter supporting a life-or-death expedite
To the National Visa Center:
I am the treating oncologist for Maria Elena Reyes, date of birth 14 March 1958, at Hospital San Juan de Dios, 128 Avenida Central, San Jose, Costa Rica. My license number is CR-44821 and I can be reached at +506 2222 0000 or [email protected].
Ms. Reyes was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic adenocarcinoma on 2 June 2026. Her current prognosis is a life expectancy of three to six months. This is a life-or-death medical emergency.
Her daughter, the beneficiary in case number SJO2024512345, is her only surviving child and her designated caregiver. I am writing to support expedited processing of that case so that she can be present during her mother’s remaining treatment.
Sincerely, Dr. Ana Solis, MD, Department of Oncology
Petitioner cover statement sent with the physician letter
Subject line: MNL2025098765
Petitioner: David Okonkwo, date of birth 8 January 1979. Invoice ID: AA00123456.
I am the petitioner in this immediate relative case. My case became documentarily complete on 12 May 2026 and is awaiting interview scheduling at the U.S. Embassy in Manila.
Attached is a signed letter from Dr. Reyna Bautista at St. Luke’s Medical Center confirming that my wife’s condition is a life-or-death medical emergency, together with her contact details and license number. I am requesting expedited scheduling on that basis. I understand a visa is available in this category because the case is an immediate relative case.
Thank you for your consideration.
Request directed to the consular section after case transfer
To the Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate General:
Case number: CDJ2025044321. Beneficiary: Luis Alberto Marin, date of birth 22 September 1991.
The National Visa Center transferred this case to your office on 4 June 2026. I am writing to request an expedited interview appointment.
My father, the petitioner, is hospitalized with end-stage renal failure and has been placed on comfort care. The attached letter from his nephrologist confirms the diagnosis, states the prognosis, and includes his direct contact information. I am the only immediate family member able to travel.
I have attached the physician letter, the hospital admission record, and proof of relationship already on file with NVC. I am available for any appointment your office can offer.
Common Mistakes That Cost Months
NVC accepts only direct debit from a U.S. checking or savings account, in U.S. dollars, drawn on a U.S. bank. Credit cards, personal checks, and mailed payments are all rejected. Applicants without a U.S. account routinely lose weeks here. Have the petitioner or attorney pay through CEAC instead.
The $120 review fee is charged once per case, not per person. The $325 or $345 immigrant visa fee is the one charged per applicant. Reversing the two either overpays or leaves an invoice open and stalls the file.
Exam results are valid for six months, and as little as three months for certain conditions. An early exam can expire before you reach the port of entry, which is grounds to refuse admission. Wait for the appointment letter.
If twelve months pass without contact, every fee, form, and document already submitted expires and the case begins pre-termination. Logging into CEAC resets the contact date. Separately, INA 203(g) lets State terminate a registration if you do not apply within one year of notice of visa availability.
Uploading scans to CEAC does not excuse you from bringing the original civil documents to the interview. The appointment letter says so explicitly, and arriving without them delays adjudication of your own case.
The Visa Appointment Wait Times page covers nonimmigrant categories. Immigrant visa scheduling lives in a separate tool that reports the documentarily complete month a post is currently working through. They are not interchangeable.
NVC cannot expedite a preference case whose priority date is not current, no matter how serious the emergency. Confirm your date against the Visa Bulletin before spending effort on the request.
After the Visa: What Comes Next
Admission as a lawful permanent resident starts a new set of clocks. The green card should arrive within 90 days of paying the USCIS Immigrant Fee or of entering the United States, whichever came later. A Social Security number can be requested through the Social Security Administration. If you move after arrival, update the address with USCIS through your online account rather than relying on mail forwarding, because USCIS mails to the most recent address it holds.
If your priority date is what is holding you up rather than paperwork, the monthly bulletin is the document to watch. Our complete Visa Bulletin analysis tracks each category’s final action and filing dates, and the month-over-month comparison shows what actually moved. For a compressed view of the process itself, see our six essential steps for consular processing outside the U.S. and our estimate of how much time the NVC stage adds to a marriage green card abroad.
One last note on how to read every number in this guide. Fees are fixed by regulation and change only when the regulation changes. Timelines are queue positions that move weekly. Treat the fee tables as durable and the NVC and USCIS figures as a snapshot of mid-2026, and check the live NVC Timeframes page and the IV Scheduling Status Tool before you make any decision that depends on a date.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does consular processing cost in total?
For one applicant on a family case: $625 for an online Form I-130, $325 for the immigrant visa application processing fee, $120 for the Affidavit of Support review, and $235 for the USCIS Immigrant Fee. That is $1,305, or $1,355 if the I-130 was filed on paper. Employment-based cases pay $345 instead of $325 and usually skip the $120 fee.
What is the difference between the IV fee and the Affidavit of Support fee?
The $325 immigrant visa application processing fee is charged per applicant, so a spouse plus two children means three separate fees. The $120 Affidavit of Support review fee is charged once per case regardless of how many derivatives are on it. Both are paid to the National Visa Center through CEAC in two separate transactions.
Can I pay NVC fees with a credit card?
No. NVC accepts only direct debit from a U.S. checking or savings account, in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank. It does not accept credit cards, personal checks, mailed payments, or payments from a bank abroad. Anyone with the CEAC login can pay, so the petitioner or an attorney can pay on the applicant’s behalf.
How long does NVC take to review documents?
NVC publishes its queue weekly on the NVC Timeframes page. As of the July 6, 2026 update, NVC was reviewing documents submitted on June 10, 2026, a lag of about 26 days, and was creating cases received from USCIS on June 24, 2026. A first review that finds errors sends the case back to the end of that queue.
What does documentarily qualified mean?
It means NVC has confirmed all fees are paid and all required forms and documents are in, and it emails you that the case is documentarily complete. That date drives interview scheduling. Under the Fully Qualified process used for all PIVOT cases, NVC will not schedule an interview until every item is present and accurate.
How long is the wait between documentarily qualified and the interview?
State says NVC strives to schedule within three months of accepting all requested documentation, but adds that this depends on the consular section’s operating status and capacity. Waits vary widely by post. The Immigrant Visa Scheduling Status Tool shows which documentarily complete month each embassy is currently working through, updated monthly.
Can I expedite my NVC case?
NVC’s published ground is narrow: a visa must be available for your category and the case must involve a life-or-death medical emergency. Send a scanned physician or medical facility letter to [email protected] with the facility’s contact details, using only the case or receipt number in the subject line. Once the case reaches the embassy, expedite requests go to the consular section instead.
When do I pay the $235 USCIS Immigrant Fee?
After you collect your immigrant visa and before you travel to the United States. It funds immigrant visa packet processing and Green Card production. You can pay after arrival, but USCIS will not issue the card until it is paid. Orphan and Hague adoptees, Iraqi and Afghan special immigrants, SB-1 returning residents, and K nonimmigrants are exempt.
