Pricing
Three costs, and they are not the same cost
People say an EB-2 NIW costs ten thousand dollars. What they mean is that a law firm charged them that to prepare it, on top of fees USCIS charges everybody. Those are separate numbers and you should see them separately before deciding what you need.
The government fees below are for a National Interest Waiver self-petition, where you pay them yourself. On an employer-sponsored route such as EB-1B, EB-1C, EB-2 with PERM or EB-3, the employer pays the filing fee and the higher $600 Asylum Program Fee, and PERM carries its own advertising and recruitment costs. Which route you are on changes the number more than anything else on this page, so check that first.
Free
$0
The assessment, the case database, and every guide.
- Dhanasar assessment against the failure taxonomy
- Comparison with adjudicated cases in the outcome database
- Every article and tool in the hub
- An honest answer when the record says you should not file yet
Prepare
$149one-time
Draft, assemble, and file the petition yourself.
- Endeavor statement and petition letter drafts, in your voice
- Recommendation-letter drafting and the signature flow
- Evidence vault with exhibit labelling
- Cross-document consistency checking
- I-140 answer sheet and the assembled, Bates-stamped packet
Prepare + counsel
$149plus the attorney's own fee
Everything above, then publish a redacted listing and compare offers.
- Bar-verified attorneys propose against your case
- You see the fee, the scope, and what is excluded before deciding
- Your identity stays redacted until you accept
- You pay the attorney directly, we never hold your money
What the government charges, regardless of us
These are paid to USCIS, not to NIWFile, and they are the same whether you file alone, with us, or through the most expensive firm in the country.
Form I-140 filing fee Paid to USCIS. Required for every EB-2 NIW petition. Not refundable if denied. $665 if you file online, but premium processing then has to be mailed separately. | $715 |
Asylum Program Fee Mandatory on every I-140 since the 2024 fee rule, and routinely left out of cost estimates. $300 is the self-petitioner rate; a regular employer pays $600 and a nonprofit pays nothing. It cannot be waived, and filing without it gets the petition rejected. | $300 |
Form I-907 premium processing Optional. 45 business days for NIW, not the 15 that applies to other classifications. | $2,965 |
Form I-485 adjustment of status $1,390 filing online. Only if you are in the US and your priority date allows filing. Biometrics are included, the 2024 fee rule folded that charge into the main fee. A child under 14 filing with a parent's I-485 pays $950. | $1,440 |
Form I-765 employment authorisation Optional, and only alongside an I-485. This used to be free for I-485 filers; the 2024 rule ended that, and people still budget for the old $0. | $260 |
Verified against the USCIS fee schedule (Form G-1055) on 10 September 2026. These amounts took effect 1 April 2024, but G-1055 has been revised more than twenty times since March 2025, confirm the current figure before you write the cheque, and check the form edition date while you are there, because USCIS rejects filings made on a superseded edition.
What we do not charge for, and will not
- A share of anything. Attorneys pay us a flat subscription and a flat $75 per proposal, owed whether or not you hire them. Never a percentage of your legal fee, several state bars hold that arrangement to be impermissible fee-splitting, and it would give us a reason to steer you toward the priciest option.
- Your legal fee. We do not escrow it, hold it, or route it. You pay your attorney directly under your own retainer.
- A better ranking. There is no sponsored placement and no featured slot. There is no lever to sell.
- The assessment. It is free even when it tells you not to file, which is the case where it is worth the most and where charging would corrupt it.
What an attorney costs
Published NIW fees generally run from about $3,000 for a review to $10,000 or more for full representation. That is real money for real work. For a complicated case (a difficult employment history, a prior denial, an RFE already in hand) it is frequently the right spend. What it should not be is the default for someone whose record is straightforward and who has read the standard.
Run the free assessment first. If it finds blockers, you now know precisely what to ask an attorney about, and that conversation goes better and costs less.
NIWFile is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Government fees are stated as published by USCIS and can change without notice.