U.S. Citizenship Fees Could Rise to $1,330 Under Trump DHS Proposal

U.S. citizenship could become significantly more expensive for green card holders under a new Trump administration proposal that would raise naturalization application fees to as much as $1,330 and remove key cost relief options for lower-income applicants.

The Department of Homeland Security proposal would increase the cost of applying for citizenship through Form N-400 from $760 to $1,330 for paper filings. Online applications would rise from $710 to $1,280, making the digital filing option cheaper but still far above the current level.

The proposed rule has not taken effect. It must still go through the federal rulemaking process, including a 60-day public comment period, before any final change can be adopted. Until then, current USCIS filing fees remain in place.

Fee waivers would disappear for many citizenship applicants

The sharpest impact may fall on applicants who currently qualify for financial relief. The proposal would eliminate fee waivers for citizenship cases and remove a reduced-fee option for households with income at or below 400% of the federal poverty line.

That matters because naturalization is often pursued by longtime lawful permanent residents who have already lived, worked and paid taxes in the United States for years. Many applicants are older adults, hourly workers, parents supporting families or people with limited savings who may find a four-figure filing fee difficult to absorb.

Service members seeking citizenship would keep existing fee exemptions, according to the proposal. For most civilian applicants, however, the plan would mark a major shift away from the long-standing policy of keeping citizenship costs relatively lower than some other immigration benefits.

USCIS is largely funded by the fees it collects rather than direct congressional funding. The agency’s current fee information is listed on its official filing fees page, which remains the key reference point for applicants checking whether they are paying the correct amount.

A bigger shift in U.S. immigration policy

The fee proposal comes during a wider Trump administration effort to tighten immigration screening and place more emphasis on fraud detection, background checks and eligibility review.

Naturalization is the legal process that allows eligible green card holders to become U.S. citizens. In most cases, applicants must have held permanent residence for three or five years, meet English and civics requirements, show continuous residence, and pass background checks.

The administration has also pushed closer review of the “good moral character” requirement used in citizenship cases. Officials have revived neighborhood checks, a practice that can involve speaking with people connected to an applicant’s daily life, including neighbors or coworkers.

The cost debate also follows broader immigration fee pressure across the system. Earlier USCIS-related fee changes and legal fights over immigration costs have already raised concerns for workers, employers and families, including in the separate dispute over Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee ruling.

For green card holders, the practical risk is timing. Anyone close to eligibility may begin watching the rulemaking process more carefully, because filing before a final rule takes effect could mean the difference between paying the current fee and facing a much higher cost later.

The proposal also raises a wider question about access to citizenship. A higher fee may help USCIS cover processing costs, but removing waivers and reductions could make naturalization harder for applicants who already meet the legal requirements but cannot easily pay more than a thousand dollars upfront.

Citizenship carries rights and protections that permanent residence does not, including voting in federal elections, holding a U.S. passport, broader protection from deportation, and the ability to petition for certain family members. For many immigrants, the application fee is not just an administrative charge; it is the financial gate between long-term residence and full civic membership.

Because the DHS plan is still only a proposal, applicants should avoid assuming the final rule will look exactly the same. Public comments, legal challenges or administrative revisions could affect the outcome. But the direction of the plan is clear: the Trump administration wants naturalization applicants to pay closer to the full cost of processing, even if that makes citizenship more expensive for families already living legally in the United States.