Immigration Filing Fees Change for Texas Applicants: Immigration Court Amounts Took Effect October 1 and USCIS Fees Change October 16, 2026

What Changed, and When

H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, created a set of immigration fees and requires the agencies that collect them to adjust those amounts for inflation every year. Fiscal year 2027 began on October 1, 2026, and the adjustment notices for that year landed in the same week from two different departments.

The Department of Homeland Security published three notices in the Federal Register on October 1, 2026. The USCIS notice, Fiscal Year 2027 Inflation Adjustment to H.R. 1 Immigration Fees, states in its own DATES section that the fees are effective on or after October 16, 2026, and that “any immigration benefit request postmarked on or after October 16, 2026 without the proper filing fee will be rejected.” The amounts it sets, compared with the fiscal year 2026 amounts, are:

• Form I-589, annual pending asylum application fee — from $102 to $105. The fee for filing the asylum application itself stays at $100.
• Form I-765, initial employment authorization for an asylum applicant, a parolee or a temporary protected status applicant — from $560 to $570.
• Form I-765 renewal or extension — unchanged, at $275 for an asylum applicant and $280 for parole, TPS and re-parole categories.
• Form I-821, temporary protected status — from $510 to $520.
• Form I-131, immigration parole fee — from $1,020 to $1,050.
• Form I-360, special immigrant juvenile — unchanged at $250.
• Form I-94 arrival and departure record — the H.R. 1 portion is unchanged at $24, which the notices attribute to the statute’s rounding requirement.

The second notice, issued with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, sets the H.R. 1 parole fee at $1,050, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization fee at $40.62, and the Electronic Visa Update System enrollment fee at $31.75, all assessed beginning October 16, 2026. The third, issued with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sets two enforcement-related H.R. 1 fees at $5,300 each for fiscal year 2027 — the fee for a person ordered removed in absentia who is subsequently arrested, and the fee for a person deemed inadmissible who is apprehended between ports of entry — with collection beginning the same day.

The Justice Department moved first, and on a different date. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration courts, published its own inflation-adjustment notice on September 29, 2026, effective October 1, 2026, covering DHS forms filed with an immigration court rather than with USCIS:

• Form I-485, adjustment of status — from $1,540 to $1,590.
• Form I-601, waiver of grounds of inadmissibility — from $1,070 to $1,100.
• Form I-821, temporary protected status — from $510 to $520.
• Form I-589 — the initial asylum fee stays at $100 and the annual pending fee rises from $102 to $105, matching the USCIS figures.

That notice states that the immigration courts will continue to reject any filing that is not accompanied by a proper filing fee or a request for an applicable fee waiver.

So for a two-week stretch the two schedules sit side by side: an immigration court filing has been on the new amounts since October 1, while a USCIS filing stays on the old amounts through October 15 and moves to the new ones on October 16.

Who in Texas This Reaches

These are not business fees or employer fees. Every one of them is paid by an individual person filing a form about their own status, which is why a ten-dollar change can matter in a way a headline figure does not capture.

• Asylum applicants with a case pending. The annual fee is owed for each year an application remains pending, so it reaches people who filed years ago and are still waiting, not only new filers.
• Temporary protected status holders and applicants filing or renewing Form I-821 and the work permit that goes with it.
• Parolees and people seeking re-parole, including households whose work authorization and travel documents run on their own renewal clocks.
• Anyone with a case in front of an immigration court in Texas. The Executive Office for Immigration Review operates immigration courts in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Harlingen, Pearsall, Conroe, Anson and other Texas locations, and a form filed there is on the October 1 schedule.
• Families filing more than one form at once. A household filing an adjustment application, a waiver and two work permits is exposed to several of these changes in the same envelope, and the total is what a family budgets for.
• Texas geographically, not only the four largest metros. These filings come from Rio Grande Valley and Laredo households, from El Paso, from Amarillo and Lubbock meatpacking and agricultural communities, from Midland and Odessa oilfield families, and from Tyler, Waco and Corpus Christi, as well as from Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth.
• People paying by check or money order weeks ahead of a deadline. The notice measures the new amounts by postmark, so the date a package leaves a post office is the date that decides which amount was correct.

What This Changes Legally

A rejection is not a denial, and it is also not nothing. A rejected filing is treated as never properly filed, which means the receipt date it would have earned does not exist. Where a form carries a deadline, a filing window, or a period during which a benefit like employment authorization keeps running, the consequence of a rejection is measured in the time it takes to re-file, not in the fee difference.

Two schedules in the same month is the practical risk. The amounts differ by venue and by date, so the question of what to enclose depends on where the form is going and when it is postmarked. Form I-821 happens to carry the same $520 figure in both places; Form I-485 is addressed in the immigration court notice and is not among the H.R. 1 amounts in the USCIS notice. Which notice governs a particular package is a question with a documentary answer.

Fee waivers and exemptions are addressed separately from the amounts. The immigration court notice refers to filings accompanied by a request for an applicable fee waiver, and the general rules on fee waivers and exemptions live in 8 C.F.R. Part 106 and in the agency’s own instructions for each form. Whether any waiver or exemption reaches a particular filing is a question about that filing, and not one this page can answer.

The annual asylum fee runs on its own clock. It is tied to a pending application rather than to an event, so it recurs while the case is pending and its amount is the amount in force when it comes due.

The form instructions remain the operative word on amounts. USCIS publishes the current fee for every form on its filing fees page and in each form’s instructions, and the agency’s fee calculator is the tool it points filers to. Those pages are updated as notices take effect, and checking them on the day a package is mailed is how the amount is confirmed.

These adjustments are annual by statute. H.R. 1 requires the inflation adjustment every fiscal year, so a similar notice is expected for fiscal year 2028. The amounts above are the fiscal year 2027 figures and not permanent ones.

This page reports the facts and takes no position on these fees, the statute, the agencies involved, any official, any party or any candidate.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing on this page is legal advice, and nothing here says that any particular person owes any particular fee, qualifies for a waiver, or is or is not eligible for any benefit. That turns on forms, receipt notices, hearing dates and filing history that a lawyer has to read. What an experienced Texas immigration attorney can review includes:

• Which schedule a specific package falls under — whether the form is going to USCIS or to an immigration court, and what the postmark date means for the amount enclosed.
• Whether a filing is better sent before or after October 16 on the facts of one case, taking the deadlines in that case into account rather than the fee alone.
• Whether a fee waiver or exemption is available for a particular form and a particular filer, and what documentation such a request calls for.
• What an annual asylum fee obligation looks like across the life of a pending case, and how it interacts with work permit renewals.
• What a rejected filing actually costs in a specific case — which dates move, which do not, and whether anything can be done about a receipt date that was lost.
• Whether a renewal should be filed earlier than planned, given that renewal amounts for several categories did not change and initial amounts did.
• How a court filing and a USCIS filing in the same matter fit together, for a household with both.
• Whether a different form or a different basis fits the same facts, which is a question worth asking whenever the cost of a route changes.

Many families who read a fee-increase headline find that their own exposure is smaller and more manageable than the headline suggested once someone walks the forms with them, and options often exist that are not obvious from a fee table. The purpose of talking to a lawyer early is to learn which situation you are actually in.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

The dates here are short and they are fixed. The immigration court amounts have been in force since October 1, 2026. The USCIS amounts take effect for anything postmarked on or after October 16, 2026, which leaves a two-week window in which the old amounts still apply to a USCIS filing. Packages assembled in that window and mailed after it close the gap in the wrong direction.

A check written for the old amount, a money order prepared a week early, or a form printed from an older instruction sheet are all ordinary things that become a rejection after October 15. It is best to talk to a lawyer while there is still room in the schedule rather than after a package comes back, because a question that takes one conversation in early October can take a re-filing and many months later.

Sources

1. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Fiscal Year 2027 Inflation Adjustment to H.R. 1 Immigration Fees,” 91 Fed. Reg., published October 1, 2026 — the fee table, the October 16, 2026 effective date, and the rejection language for a benefit request postmarked without the proper fee (primary source).
2. U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review, “Inflation Adjustment for EOIR OBBBA Fees for Certain DHS Forms; Fiscal Year 2027,” published September 29, 2026, effective October 1, 2026 — the amounts for DHS forms filed with the immigration courts and the fee-waiver language (primary source).
3. U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “Certain DHS Immigration-Related Fees Required by HR-1: Fiscal Year 2027 Adjustments for Inflation,” published October 1, 2026 — the parole, ESTA and EVUS amounts and the unchanged Form I-94 fee (primary source).
4. U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “Certain DHS Immigration-Related Fees Required by HR-1: Fiscal Year 2027 Adjustments for Inflation,” published October 1, 2026 — the two enforcement-related fee amounts for fiscal year 2027 (primary source).
5. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Filing Fees and the Fee Calculator — the agency pages that carry the current amount for each form.
6. 8 C.F.R. Part 106 — the fee provisions, including waivers and exemptions.
7. “USCIS Announces FY 2027 Inflation Adjustments to H.R. 1 Immigration Fees” — independent confirmation of the fee table, the October 16, 2026 effective date and the postmark rule.
8. “USCIS Announces FY 2027 Inflation-Adjusted Immigration Fee Increases” — second independent account of the same amounts and effective date.