EB-1A Cost 2026: Filing Fees, Attorney Fees, and Totals

The full EB-1A cost lands between $10,000 and $22,000 for most represented cases in 2026, and under $4,000 in government fees if you file every form yourself. The table lists each fee in the order it usually comes up, petition first, green card after.

Every EB-1A budget splits the same way. Stage one is the petition: Form I-140, where you prove extraordinary ability against the criteria and USCIS weighs the whole record. Almost all of the legal work, and so most of the money, sits here, along with the petition filing fees and premium processing if you add it.

Stage two is the green card. After the petition is approved, you either adjust status in the US or go to consular processing abroad, and a medical exam comes either way. Stage-one fees are paid once, for you alone. Stage-two fees repeat for each family member, which is why a family’s total grows at the end, not the start. Which route you take changes the price a little; the family headcount changes it a lot.

The ranges above bracket most cases; the calculator below prices yours. Set adjustment or consular, premium or regular, and your family size, and it itemizes every government fee for that setup, stage by stage, next to the flat imigOS legal fee.

The EB-1A filing fees at the petition stage come to $1,015: a $715 fee for Form I-140 ($665 if you file online) and a $300 Asylum Program Fee. Both go to USCIS together when the petition is filed, whoever prepares it.

The Asylum Program Fee runs $600 for larger employers, but an individual filing for themselves pays the reduced $300 rate, and it is not waived for self-petitions. There is no separate biometrics charge anymore; that cost now lives inside the green-card-stage I-485 fee. So until you add premium processing, just over a thousand dollars really is all the government asks for the petition itself.

EB-1A premium processing costs $2,965, requested on Form I-907, and it commits USCIS to act on your petition within 15 business days. Without it, an EB-1A decision sits in the regular processing queue, which can stretch for months.

Premium pays off when something real is waiting on the answer. If your green-card number is current, a fast approval lets you file, or finish, the green-card stage sooner. If a job move or a visa expiry sets a deadline, the certainty alone can be worth it. If your country’s line is backlogged, a faster petition changes nothing about the wait. And you never have to decide up front: premium can be added to a pending petition at any time for the same fee.

EB-1A attorney fees usually run $8,000 to $15,000 as a flat fee, and complex cases at premium firms can pass $20,000. The spread is real: some firms advertise flat rates from $8,000, others price case by case after seeing your record. What you are paying for is argument, mapping your evidence to the criteria, drafting the letters, and building the final-merits case that decides EB-1A petitions.

Your record sets your quote. A researcher with strong citations and clear awards needs less building than a founder whose proof is scattered across press, funding, and product. The further your evidence already reaches across the 10 criteria, the lower the fee tends to land.

Pin down the flat fee’s scope before you sign. Ask whether it includes the green-card stage or the petition only, whether expert letters cost extra, and above all who pays if USCIS sends a request for evidence. Some firms answer one at no charge; others bill $2,000 to $5,000 for it. imigOS takes the guesswork out with one flat legal price, fixed before you commit, and you can check imigOS pricing up front.

The petition rests on documents, and a few of them cost money to produce. None is large on its own; together they can add a few hundred to a few thousand dollars:

The EB-1A green card stage costs $1,440 per person if you adjust status in the US on Form I-485. An optional $260 work permit and $630 travel permit can be added while it is pending. From abroad, consular processing costs a $345 State Department fee plus a $235 USCIS Immigrant Fee per person. Either way, add a medical exam at $200 to $500 per person.

One thing the EB-1A does better than most green cards: the EB-1 category is current for most countries most of the time. So you can often file the I-485 concurrently with the petition. That means both stages’ fees leave your account at once, a bigger single outlay in exchange for the earlier filing date and the work permit that pending adjustment allows. Applicants born in India or China usually face a wait for a number instead, and their stage-two costs come later.

Your spouse and unmarried children under 21 get green cards through your EB-1A, and each pays the stage-two fees individually, at the same per-person rates as yours. The one discount: a child under 14 filing with a parent pays $950 for the I-485 instead of the adult rate. Medical exams are per person too.

There is no second petition fee; your I-140 covers the family’s classification. In practice, a spouse and two children under 14 add about $3,500 to $5,000 to a US-based case once exams are counted, plus some attorney time for the extra forms.

A denial does not come with a refund. USCIS keeps every filing fee whatever the outcome, and the legal spend is between you and your firm. The one exception is premium processing: that fee comes back only if USCIS misses its own clock, never because the answer was no.

What happens next has its own price list. Refiling means paying the petition fees again, which usually only makes sense after the record has genuinely improved. An appeal or a motion to reopen goes on Form I-290B for $800, and the legal work on top typically costs more than the form. The EB-1A bar is high enough that strong people do get denied, so the cheapest insurance is an honest read of your record before you file. A free eligibility check is where that starts.

Yes. The EB-1A is self-petitioned, so nothing requires an attorney. A self-filed case pays government fees only, about $2,500 to $4,000 through to a green card, depending on route and family size. The forms are the easy part.

The hard part is that EB-1A petitions are won on argument. USCIS first checks your evidence against the criteria, then weighs the whole record in a final-merits judgment, and that second step is where unrepresented cases most often come up short. Filing on your own makes the most sense when your acclaim is already loud, documented, and easy to read. If a lawyer would spend their time building rather than polishing, the fee is usually earning its keep.

Where you land in the range depends on three choices: lawyer or not, premium or not, and how much building your record needs. Four honest setups: