A sweeping US immigration package—nick-named the “Beautiful Act”—took effect on 1 January 2026 and is already rippling through India’s outbound mobility ecosystem. The legislation raises a raft of application fees and imposes strict new electronic-payment and security-screening requirements. Travel and Tour World reports that the Employment Authorisation Document fee alone has risen from US$550 to US$560, while most non-immigrant visa classes now attract a mandatory US$250 “Visa Integrity Fee” at the point of issuance.
For Indian businesses the immediate headline is price: consultants estimate that a family of four applying for B-1/B-2 visitor visas will now pay roughly ₹1 lakh more in combined charges than under the 2025 fee schedule. Petition-based categories such as H-1B and L-1 are also affected because dependent EAD costs are higher and premium-processing surcharges remain unchanged. Additional pain points include a shift to ACH or card-only settlement—paper cheques are no longer accepted—forcing Indian corporates without US bank accounts to rely on third-party processors at added cost.
![‘Beautiful Act’ drives sharp hike in US visa fees; Indian applicants brace for higher costs and tougher vetting]()
The Act also mandates deeper social-media screening and obliges airlines to deny boarding to travellers whose Advance Passenger Information flags expired visas or security hits. US Consulate officials in Mumbai told Global Mobility News they expect interview-wait times to lengthen temporarily as officers adjust to the new vetting rubric, particularly for applicants from “high-volume” countries like India.
What mobility teams should do now: 1) Update cost projections for 2026 relocation budgets; 2) advise assignees to prepare for longer lead-times when renewing work visas stateside; 3) audit corporate‐card limits because the new e-payment portal can decline transactions above US$10,000 without prior authorisation. Immigration counsel further recommend instructing travellers to tidy social-media profiles, as consular officers may deny cases where privacy settings block content review.
In the medium term, experts expect fee inflation to continue—annual indexation is baked into the text of the Beautiful Act—meaning Indian companies will need to embed higher US immigration costs into long-range workforce-planning models.
For Indian businesses the immediate headline is price: consultants estimate that a family of four applying for B-1/B-2 visitor visas will now pay roughly ₹1 lakh more in combined charges than under the 2025 fee schedule. Petition-based categories such as H-1B and L-1 are also affected because dependent EAD costs are higher and premium-processing surcharges remain unchanged. Additional pain points include a shift to ACH or card-only settlement—paper cheques are no longer accepted—forcing Indian corporates without US bank accounts to rely on third-party processors at added cost.
The Act also mandates deeper social-media screening and obliges airlines to deny boarding to travellers whose Advance Passenger Information flags expired visas or security hits. US Consulate officials in Mumbai told Global Mobility News they expect interview-wait times to lengthen temporarily as officers adjust to the new vetting rubric, particularly for applicants from “high-volume” countries like India.
What mobility teams should do now: 1) Update cost projections for 2026 relocation budgets; 2) advise assignees to prepare for longer lead-times when renewing work visas stateside; 3) audit corporate‐card limits because the new e-payment portal can decline transactions above US$10,000 without prior authorisation. Immigration counsel further recommend instructing travellers to tidy social-media profiles, as consular officers may deny cases where privacy settings block content review.
In the medium term, experts expect fee inflation to continue—annual indexation is baked into the text of the Beautiful Act—meaning Indian companies will need to embed higher US immigration costs into long-range workforce-planning models.
Source: Travel and Tour World
