Schedule of Fees for Consular Services, Department of State and Overseas Embassies and Consulates-Visa Services Fee Changes

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF STATE <CFR>22 CFR Parts 22 and 42</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Public Notice: 12819]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1400-AG09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Schedule of Fees for Consular Services, Department of State and Overseas Embassies and Consulates—Visa Services Fee Changes</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of State. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of State (“Department”) proposes an adjustment to the Schedule of Fees for Consular Services of the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs (“Schedule of Fees” or “Schedule”) to establish a $1 fee to register for the Diversity Visa lottery program. This change will more fairly place the burden of the lottery registration on individuals seeking the benefit of gaining access to the DV application process instead of charging only the small percentage of successful registrants for the costs associated with administering the lottery program for all registrants. To effect this change to the DV program, the Department is also amending its regulations to note that an electronic registration fee will be collected at the time of registration. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective September 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Please visit <E T="03">http://regulations.gov</E> and search for docket number DOS-2025-0302. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Steve Jacob, Office of the Comptroller, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Department of State; phone: 771-204-4677; email: <E T="03">Fees@state.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> This rule makes a change to Item 33 of the Schedule of Fees by adding a $1 fee to register for the DV lottery in addition to the $330 Diversity Visa Application fee. The cost of managing the DV lottery historically has been included in the Diversity Visa Application fee as authorized by law. <E T="03">See</E> 8 U.S.C. 1153 (note) (noting that the Diversity Visa Application fee “may be set at a level that will ensure recovery of the cost to the Department of State of allocating visas under such section, including the cost of processing all applications thereunder”). By creating a new fee for the lottery registration, the Department will more fairly put the cost of managing the lottery on those who register for it. This change will also help to reduce specious registrations by actors seeking to exploit unsuspecting potential entrants. To effect this change to the DV program, the Department is also amending 22 CFR 42.33(b)(3) by deleting the following sentence: “No fee will be collected at the time of submission of a petition, but a processing fee may be collected at a later date, as provided in paragraph (i) of this section.” In addition, the Department is amending 22 CFR 42.33(i) to note that a registration fee will be collected through an authorized U.S. Government payment portal at the time of registration, prior to submission and completion of the registration. <HD SOURCE="HD1">What is the authority for this action?</HD> Sec. 636 of Public Law 104-208, div. C, Title VI, 110 Stat. 3009-703, reproduced at 8 U.S.C. 1153 (note), authorizes the Secretary of State to collect and retain a “Diversity Immigrant Lottery Fee.” Under this fee authority, the Secretary of State may establish and retain a fee to recover the costs of “allocating visas” described in 8 U.S.C. 1153, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> running the DV lottery pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1154(a)(1)(I), and to recover the costs of “processing applications” for diversity immigrant visas submitted by selectees of the lottery. Per the authority, the Department is permitted but not required to build the costs of running the lottery into the DV application fee. The DV application fee was last adjusted in 2012, when it was lowered from $440 to $330. In addition to the specific DV application fee authority, the Department derives the general authority to establish cost-based consular fees from the general user charges statute, 31 U.S.C. 9701. <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> 31 U.S.C. 9701(b)(2)(A) (“The head of each agency . . . may prescribe regulations establishing the charge for a service or thing of value provided by the agency . . . based on . . . the costs to the government.”). The President also has the power to set the amount of fees to be charged for consular services provided at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 4219, and has delegated this authority to the Secretary of State, E.O. 10718 (June 27, 1957). The Department is relying on these authorities to establish this fee to register for the DV lottery, and is shifting the costs of running the lottery from the DV application fee to the $1 lottery registration fee. In the absence of a specific statutory fee retention authority, fees collected for consular services must be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 3302(b). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Why is the Department adjusting fees at this time?</HD> The Department is creating a $1 fee to register for the DV lottery program. This $1 fee reflects the operational costs of running the annual DV lottery. These include the annual review and update of the systems required to collect the lottery form submissions, data storage, automated randomized selection of lottery winners, and associated security reviews. The Diversity Visa application fee will continue to cover all other costs associated with administering the Diversity Visa program. The costs associated with the lottery that are currently included in the DV application fee would be removed from that fee, but the overall cost per accepted applicant is low enough that the DV fee would not be immediately reduced. The Department reviews consular fees periodically, including through an annual update to its Cost of Service Model, to determine appropriateness of each fee consistent with OMB guidance. The Department will review the DV fee in its next model update and adjust the DV application fee if and as needed at that time. Separating the DV lottery process from the DV application process more fairly places the cost burden of the lottery registration on individuals who seek the benefit of gaining access to the DV lottery instead of charging the small percentage of successful registrants for the increased costs associated with administering the program for all registrants. With certain exceptions—such as the reciprocal nonimmigrant visa issuance fee—the Department generally sets consular fees at an amount calculated to achieve recovery of the costs to the U.S. government of providing the consular service, in a manner consistent with general user charges principles, regardless of the specific statutory authority under which the fees are authorized. As set forth in OMB Circular A-25, as a general policy, each recipient should pay a reasonable user charge for government services, resources, or goods from which he or she derives a special benefit, at an amount sufficient for the U.S. government to recover the full costs to it of providing the service, resource, or good. <E T="03">See</E> OMB Circular No. A-25, sec. 6(a)(2)(a). The OMB guidance covers all Federal Executive Branch activities that convey special benefits to recipients beyond those that accrue to the general public. See id., sections 4(a), 6(a)(1). <HD SOURCE="HD1">When will the Department of State implement this rule?</HD> The Department intends to implement this rule 30 days after date of publication. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Findings</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Administrative Procedure Act</HD> The Department asserts the “foreign affairs function” exemption to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (5 U.S.C. 553(a)(1)). This is consistent with the Attorney General's opinion  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> that was issued concurrent with the passage of the APA that <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act. (1947). United States: U.S. Department of Justice, pp. 26-27. </FTNT> <EXTRACT> It is equally clear that the exemption is not limited to strictly diplomatic functions, because the phrase “diplomatic function” was employed in the January 6, 1945 draft of S. 7 (Senate Comparative Print of June 1945, p. 6; Sen. Doc. p. 157) and was discarded in favor of the broader and more generic phrase “foreign affairs function”. <E T="03">In the light of this legislative history, it would seem clear that the exception must be construed as applicable to most functions of the State Department and to the foreign affairs functions of any other agency.</E> (emphasis added) </EXTRACT> The subject matter of this final rule involves the collection of visa fees through the Diversity Visa program. The administration of this program is a foreign affairs function of the United States. By requiring the $1 fee for all aliens who register for the Diversity Visa program, the Department is shifting the burden of the registration and random selection process to the group that seeks the benefit of gaining access to the program, instead of only charging the small percentage of successful registrants, who will still be responsible for the costs associated with administering the remainder of the program. This is a fairer way to administer the DV visa program. Visas are issued by the Department of State to foreign citizens in foreign countries. Accordingly, this rule is properly viewed as one that “clearly and directly involve[s] activities or actions characteristic to the conduct of international relations.” <E T="03">Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coal.</E> v. <E T="03">Trump,</E> 471 F. Supp. 3d 25, 53 (D.D.C. 2020); <E T="03">E.B.</E> v. <E T="03">U.S. Dep't of State,</E> 583 F. Supp. 3d 58, 64 (D.D.C. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━