H-2A application costs jump

Samantha Ayoub American Farm Bureau Federation

Editor’s note: Dairy farms are big employers of immigrant labor as well, and the need for workers has the National Milk Producers Federation renewing its call for dairy farms to be given access to the H-2A Ag Guest Worker Visa Program. The organization sent a letter to the president earlier this year asking the White House to issue an executive order to exempt dairy-worker positions from H-2A’s seasonality restriction. The action would help dairy farmers recruit workers, control labor costs and ease food inflation. The federation says unlike the rest of ag, the dairy industry is unable to use that H-2A program because of the year-round nature of dairy production. And dairy farms will not be able to survive, let alone thrive, without a steady, reliable workforce.

Applying for certifications and visas for H-2A temporary agricultural workers is the beginning of a long list of requirements for farmers who cannot find enough U.S. workers. Farmers who are unable to find domestic farmworkers may petition the U.S. government to grant foreign workers temporary work visas. The process requires interactions with three different federal agencies, all with independent application processes and, of course, corresponding fees.

Despite workers being required to apply for their visas themselves, H-2A employers bear the responsibility for paying or reimbursing all application fees associated with H-2A employment. In recent years, rapid increases to agency fees have hit farmer margins in almost every step of the H-2A filing process. The fee increases are the latest in a long line of costly updates to H-2A employer requirements, most notably mandated wages that are increasing much faster than domestic wages or inflation. Those costs accumulate as farmers are waiting on much-needed farmworkers during time-sensitive planting and harvesting seasons when an extra day of administrative delays could mean the difference between a perfect or lost crop, and each additional dollar could threaten the farm’s financial future.

U.S. Department of Labor – The first step of the federal H-2A petition process is having the U.S. Department of Labor certify the need for foreign workers. Employers must electronically submit an “Application for Temporary Employment Certification” that prompts the department to ensure proper steps have been taken to recruit domestic workers. It’s important to note that farmer requests for agricultural guest workers are only approved after they exhaust recruitment efforts to seek domestic workers for those positions. The fees associated with the application vary depending on how many workers an employer intends to bring in for the designated timeframe, each not exceeding 10 months. Each employment contract has a $100 application fee with an additional $10 per worker requested. The average H-2A contract requests 20 workers, so in the first step of the process, the Department of Labor alone is paid $300 for one H-2A contract. There is a maximum fee of $1,000 for any employer applying for foreign-employment certifications. The application can be submitted electronically but the department invoices the application during processing. All payments require a mailed check or money order.

The department considers a “timely” processing period as less than three months. More than 98 percent of applications in fiscal-year 2024 received their determination in that time frame. But that certification is only the first step in granting H-2A workers visas to work in the United States – and three months can quickly become a long drawn-out recruitment period.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Once the Department of Labor certifies foreign workers are needed because the domestic workforce did not apply for the advertised jobs, employers can then begin the visa process. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Department of Homeland Security requires a “Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker” I-129 form. Those forms are required for all work visas that do not have access to citizenship, including the H-2A program. Even in the modern digital age, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services only accepts paper I-129 forms that are mailed to the department. Any errors with the hard-copy application would be returned through the postal service and must be resubmitted.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services changed its payment structure in 2024 to increase fees and fund an unrelated asylum program. Prior to the fee changes, all employers paid a flat $460 per work contract, regardless of the number of employees they wished to employ or if they were specifically listing the employee to be brought into their employment. After April 1, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services increased fees for any employee who is specifically requested on the form, which are typically those nonimmigrant employees who are seeking to transfer from one place of employment to another. A petition with named workers now costs $545 for employers with less than 25 employees or $1,090 for larger employers. Large employers also saw an increase to unnamed petitions – those without specifically listed employees – as they now pay a minimum of $530 per petition. The new fee schedule also limited I-129 forms to 25 employees per petition. So any employer with more employees pays a greater certification fee per contract in addition to filing multiple petitions.

Additionally, each employer must pay $300 or $600 per petition, depending on how many workers they employ, to support processing of asylum applications. Despite an executive order suspending processing of refugee and asylum applications, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is still collecting fees from nonimmigrant employers to fund the program.

In total, those fee changes increased processing costs by as much as 267 percent per petition. Since some employers are also now required to submit multiple petitions, H-2A application fees to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services alone more than doubled for many employers.

The Department of Homeland Security also plays an important role in allowing H-2A workers into the United States. Once workers receive a visa and seek entrance to the United States, they must also have their visa examined and approved upon admission. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is in charge of checking entry paperwork at ports of entry, whether travelers arrive by plane or car. Each of those approval border stamps currently costs $6. But starting July 22, 2025, that fee jumped to $24 per person, a 300 percent increase. If the average H-2A contract has 20 workers seeking access and employment, that is $360 more per year just to admit workers who have already been vetted and approved. The new fee schedule will also allow border-stamp costs to increase each year with inflation, so farmers face a continuously climbing application fee.

Starting Oct. 1, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security will also be responsible for implementing a new “visa integrity fee.” That fee will be a minimum of $250 for every nonimmigrant visa issued, including H-2A. Farmers face uncertainty in how much that new fee will truly cost, as the Secretary of Homeland Security has authority to increase that fee to any level beyond $250 – and may increase the fee yearly to accommodate inflation. But since the Department of Homeland Security does not issue visas, there is still logistical planning needed to coordinate payment of that new fee. That means there may be yet another hurdle for employers and employees added to the H-2A filing process. That fee may be reimbursed once workers return to their home country, within the confines of the visa requirement. But it’s unclear how that will work for programs like H-2A where employers must reimburse employees in the first paycheck for all visa fees incurred. And because H-2A visas remain valid for three years, employees may work for multiple farmers during that time period.

U.S. Department of State – Once H-2A employees have been recruited in their home countries to fill a certified employment opportunity, they must apply for a visa allowing them entrance and work eligibility in the United States. That’s where the name “H-2A” comes from because it’s the visa class that temporary agricultural workers receive. The Department of State conducts all visa applications and interviews for temporary and permanent immigration seekers alike.

Each employee must submit her or his own DS-160 visa application and pay $205, which must be reimbursed by the employer in their first work paycheck. That fee has also increased in the past two years. Prior to June 17, 2023, H-2A visa applications were $190. After applications and fees have been received, each employee must travel to a U.S. embassy or consulate to conduct an in-person interview at the expense of the H-2A employer. Each visa lasts as long as three years. Returning workers may be eligible for interview waivers. But any first-time, expired or visa applicants who have not been in the United States.in the past year must apply, pay the $205 fee and conduct an in-person interview. Starting Sept. 2, 2025, the State Department will stop issuing interview waivers for H-2A workers, so all employees will need to attend an in-person interview before they are approved for entry to the United States.

In Mexico, where more than 90 percent of H-2A workers are from, there are nine different locations that process H-2A visas. Most H-2A applications are directed to the consulate in Monterrey, Mexico. The State Department aims to have visa applications certified within three to seven days of interviews, but consolidation of visa processing to a few locations can lead in peak seasons to backups in processing capacity at the consulate. The discontinuation of interview waivers means demand for in-person interviews will further increase.

Unfortunately, visa backlogs also leave U.S. farmers and ranchers waiting longer for employee certification. H-2A employers must pay for all travel and housing in the consulate city while employees are waiting for interviews and approval. If delays occur, that means farmer costs also pile up while employees must live in a foreign city for extended periods. Because employees deal with the State Department directly, there can also be a lack of communication back to sponsoring employers, leaving the farmer confused with the status of their applications as they continue to pay living expenses.

Conclusion

H-2A filing is a convoluted process that requires juggling three different federal-agency requirements, employee responsibilities and hard-copy mailing timelines. In total, application fees for just one H-2A worker will soon cost at least $1,350, almost $600 more than just two years ago, and take months to process. For an average contract for 20 workers, application fees alone will cost at least $10,640, an increase of more than 127 percent in two years, And employers are advised to begin their application process 75 days before they plan to start employing workers. The application process often requires attorney assistance to navigate, meaning total costs and time extend past the checks and paperwork mailed to the federal government. Those applications and fees are just the beginning of a long list of requirements for U.S. farmers and ranchers once employees reach the United States, including rapidly inflating wages, housing and transportation – some of which begins during the filing process.

Fruit and vegetable growers that rely most on H-2A workers have narrow windows for growing and harvesting their perishable crops, and each additional step in the process introduces potential delays that could ruin that year’s crop. H-2A employers have long called for reforms to that application process to streamline applications. The Department of Labor recently announced a new office to assist farmers in jumping through the hoops of nonimmigrant filings. American employers are well-vested in the success of their employees throughout the application process and into their work season. So any step taken to ease the H-2A program’s complexity is a step toward providing opportunity to foreign farmworkers while supporting domestic farm production.

Starting Sept. 2, 2025, the Department of Labor will temporarily suspend collection of H-2A employment-certification fees in order to transition to an online payment system. Any certifications during the suspension period will not be billed, and the department will not retroactively seek payment. There is no announced end date for the suspension period.