USA: the USD 4,500 L-1 fee is now also due on extensions

Key points

• On 27 October 2026, USCIS issued a Policy Alert on L-1 fees and amended its Policy Manual.
• The basis is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) final rule on the 9-11 fee for H-1B and L-1 visas, published on 10 August 2026 and effective from 9 September 2026.
• The statutory 9-11 fee is USD 4,500 per L-1 petition. It is now also due on extensions of status, not only on initial filings and changes of employer.
• Only "covered employers" pay: 50 or more employees in the US, of whom more than half are on H-1B or L-1 visas.
• Amended petitions that do not extend the period of stay are exempt. The fee cannot be waived or reduced.

What changed

The fee in question was introduced by the US Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 (Public Law 114-113). The money funds biometric entry and exit control, which is why it is called the 9-11 fee. The law requires companies with a high share of foreign workers to pay it when they file an L-1 petition for a new employee or for an employee moving to them from another employer.

Until September 2026, L-1 extensions were outside this fee: a company paid it once, when it transferred an employee to the US, and later extensions cost only the regular fees. On 10 August 2026, DHS published a final rule extending the fee to extensions. The rule took effect on 9 September 2026. From that date, USCIS accepts petitions only on the new edition of Form I-129 dated 9 September 2026.

On 27 October, USCIS brought its Policy Manual into line with the rule. The alert states that the fee applies to all L-1 petitions from covered employers, except amended petitions that do not seek to extend the current period of status. USCIS also removed specific fee amounts from the manual and now refers to the official fee schedule, Form G-1055. This means the exact amount must be checked against the current schedule on the filing date.

What this means for you. If your US company is small and you are transferring yourself or a key employee there on an L-1 visa, the 9-11 fee most likely does not apply. If the company is large and more than half of its US workforce are foreign nationals on H-1B and L-1, the budget for every extension grows by USD 4,500.

Who is a covered employer

Not every company filing L-1 petitions pays the 9-11 fee, only so-called covered employers. The rule sets two conditions, and both must be met at the same time:

The rule codified a long-standing counting practice: H-1B, L-1A and L-1B workers are counted together, and part-time employees are included in the total headcount. A company cannot avoid the fee by spreading foreign staff across different visa types.

The conditions most often catch large IT and consulting companies that transfer engineers from overseas offices to the US. For them, the 9-11 fee has long been a noticeable cost, and now it will recur at every extension for every such employee.

When the fee is due: before and after

An L-1 extension is filed when the initial period ends and the employee continues working for the US company. For executives and managers on L-1A the total stay can reach seven years, for specialists on L-1B up to five. Over that time a company usually files one or more extensions, and now each of them costs a covered employer USD 4,500 more.

There is one exception: an amended petition that does not extend the period of status, for example when the employee's work location or duties change but the end date stays the same. In that case the 9-11 fee is not charged.

Who is affected in practice

Our clients usually use the L-1A visa differently: a business owner outside the US opens a subsidiary or branch in America and transfers themselves or a manager there. Such a US company starts with a handful of people, so the 50-employee condition is not met and the 9-11 fee is not due on the initial filing or on extensions.

The fee becomes relevant as the business grows. If the US company hires more than 50 people and more than half of them work on H-1B and L-1 visas, it becomes a covered employer, and every subsequent extension costs more. Few clients are in this position, but for them the calculation changes: with dozens of transferred employees, the fee adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years.

The fee does not apply to family members. The employee's spouse and children receive dependent L-2 status through a separate form, and the 9-11 fee does not apply to them. Nor does it affect those working on an E-2 investor visa or an O-1 visa: the rule covers only H-1B and L-1 petitions.

Three examples

• A European family company has opened a branch in Miami with 8 staff, including the owner on an L-1A. The company is not a covered employer: no 9-11 fee on filing or on extension. Extension costs are the regular fees under Form G-1055.
• A technology company has 300 employees in the US, 180 of them on H-1B and L-1 visas. The foreign share is 60%, so the company is covered. When it extends L-1 status for 40 engineers in 2027, it will pay USD 180,000 in 9-11 fees alone, although before September 2026 these extensions carried no such fee.
• A company on the threshold: 55 US employees, 27 of them on H-1B and L-1. The share is below half, so no fee. If it transfers two more employees on L-1 visas while total headcount stays the same, it becomes covered, and the fee applies from the next petition.

The third example shows why the share of foreign employees must be calculated before filing. The company is responsible for the calculation, and a fee error can lead to the petition being rejected at intake.

How USCIS checks the calculation

On Form I-129 the company itself states how many employees it has in the US and what share of them work on H-1B and L-1 visas. These answers determine which fees must accompany the petition. If the company is covered but did not include the 9-11 fee, the petition will not be accepted for processing and will be returned, while the clock on the employee's status keeps running.

USCIS can cross-check the answers against other data: company filings, previous petitions and employee records. Incorrect answers on the form become a question of the accuracy of information, not only of the payment amount. That is why it is best to support the headcount and the share of foreign workers with documents as of the filing date: the staffing table, payroll data and a list of employees holding visas.

For small companies the check usually comes down to one question on the form: the US company has fewer than 50 employees, so no 9-11 fee is needed. Even then we advise keeping proof of headcount: when status is extended a year or two later, the company may have grown, and the calculation will have to be done again.

Timing matters as well. An extension petition should be filed before the current period of stay expires; while a timely filed extension is pending, the employee can generally continue working for the same employer for up to 240 days. A rejected petition does not stop the clock, so a fee error discovered late can leave too little time to refile.

Part of a wider course

The new fee rule is not the only change to work visas in 2026. DHS has proposed to remove the 60-day grace period for people who lose their job and to stop giving deference to prior approvals when extending E, L and O status. If both proposals become rules, an L-1 extension will be both more expensive and less predictable.

The logic of all these documents is the same: temporary work status must strictly match the basis on which it was granted, and companies that rely heavily on foreign labour should pay more for the control system. For employers this means higher costs and closer attention to deadlines; for employees, the need to think about permanent status early.

What this means for business owners

For a business owner choosing a path to the US, the L-1A visa remains a workable option. It suits those who have an operating company outside the US and are ready to open a real business in America. After a year of the branch operating, an L-1A executive can apply for a green card under EB-1C without a labour market test, and that is the visa's main advantage.

If you do not have an operating company abroad, the E-2 visa is often more convenient. It requires citizenship of a country that has a treaty of trade and investment with the US. Russia and many CIS countries have no such treaty, so investors often first obtain Grenada citizenship or Turkish citizenship. We explained how this works in our articles on the E-2 visa through Grenada citizenship and on the Turkish passport and the E-2, and in practice in the stories of a move through Grenada and a move through Turkey.

For those who want permanent status not tied to an employer, the EB-5 investment programme fits. We calculated its cost in 2026 in a separate article, and the latest queue for the category is in our Visa Bulletin news.

What to do now

Our team helps business owners and specialists choose a path to the US and prepares the documents. Options for entrepreneurs are in the business residency section, for specialists in the talent residency section. You can discuss your situation at an online consultation.