US immigrant visa holders should check the separate Green Card fee

Treat the USCIS payment as a separate post-visa step

People issued a US immigrant visa abroad should check the separate USCIS Immigrant Fee before expecting their physical Green Card. USCIS uses it to process the immigrant visa record and produce the card. Its payment overview encourages payment after collecting the visa and before departure, while expressly allowing payment after arrival. It says the card will not be received until the fee is paid.

The State Department’s shorter instruction says to pay before travel, while USCIS expressly permits later payment. Someone already admitted who missed payment should follow USCIS instructions rather than pay another consular visa fee. The portal allows another person to pay using the immigrant’s identifiers and warns that payments are not refunded because of processing time.

Keep each immigrant’s identifiers and check the fee category

USCIS’s F4 payment guide distinguishes the Alien Number, or A-Number, from the Department of State Case ID. The consular immigrant-fee handout or immigrant data summary supplies them. Its examples describe an A followed by eight or nine digits and a DOS identifier generally consisting of three letters followed by numbers; Diversity Visa identifiers have a different pattern. Copy the actual identifiers carefully instead of constructing a number from an example or substituting a passport number.

The guide says several family members’ payments can be included in one transaction by entering each person’s own identifiers. It lists credit cards, debit cards and a US checking account as payment options, and describes an online account for following the card, updating the address and receiving notifications. One family payment does not mean that every relative uses the principal applicant’s number. Check each person’s handout before entering the details, and retain a record of which cases were included in the transaction.

The published USCIS fee table lists US$235 for the general immigrant-fee category, with zero-fee categories for specified adoptees, Iraqi and Afghan special immigrants, returning residents and K nonimmigrants. The table’s separate exemption for other Afghan nationals is expressly dated through 30 September 2025; that old entry should not be read as a general current exemption for every Afghan applicant. Confirm the category against the official payment calculation.

Keep the visa’s entry deadline separate from card production

The State Department’s After the Interview instructions say to examine the visa’s printed identity information immediately and contact the embassy or consulate if it contains errors. For the journey, the relevant deadline is the expiry printed on the immigrant visa. The department says an immigrant visa is usually valid for up to six months, but expiry of the medical examination can shorten that period. A fee-payment receipt does not move the visa’s expiry date.

The same resource says the principal applicant must enter before or together with derivative family members. Receiving visas as a family does not mean a derivative can always make the first journey alone ahead of the principal. Admission remains a border decision; issuance of the visa does not guarantee it. Admission establishes permanent residence; card manufacture is a later step. No individual delivery date was established from the sources checked here.

Avoid confusing the card fee with earlier NVC payments

The National Visa Center’s fee instructions describe the immigrant-visa application processing fee and the affidavit-of-support fee as earlier case-processing payments. That page uses the NVC case number and invoice identification information and directs applicants through the consular electronic system. These are different payment instructions from the USCIS immigrant-fee handout. A family that has already paid NVC should therefore identify which charge the new notice actually concerns rather than assuming that any request after a visa interview is a duplicate. The NVC page says its two fees are paid separately, one at a time, through CEAC using a US bank account. That differs from USCIS’s listed card-payment options, another reason to identify the correct transaction before paying.

Use the USCIS overview for the card transaction and the State Department instructions for NVC. If the payment does not recognise the identifiers, check the handout with the issuing mission before retrying. No paid priority card-production service or individual delivery guarantee was established from these resources.