Click to view full size

If you’re one of the thou­sands ap­ply­ing for a US non­im­mi­grant visa, pre­pare to pay an ad­di­tion­al $US250 fee once the visa is grant­ed. The new ‘visa in­tegri­ty fee’ is part of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ‘One Big Beau­ti­ful Bill’, which was signed in­to law on Ju­ly 4th. The near­ly 900-page long bill aims to, among oth­er things, re­duce tax­es and oth­er­wise ad­dress agen­cies and pro­grams through­out the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Here’s what we know so far:

What is the Visa In­tegri­ty Fee?

The new US$250 “Visa In­tegri­ty Fee” will be added to the reg­u­lar visa ap­pli­ca­tion cost. For T&T na­tion­als, a B1/B2 tourist visa cur­rent­ly costs US$185. If grant­ed, the to­tal pay­ment now ris­es to US$435, or al­most TT$3,000. The amount will be ad­just­ed an­nu­al­ly for in­fla­tion and may be in­creased by or­der of the Sec­re­tary of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.