USCIS to Resume Premium Processing for H-1B Petitions Beginning March 12

Here is the news that many H1b aspirants waiting to hear. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Monday that it will be resuming premium processing on all H1-B petitions beginning March 12.

The USCIS also said that if any candidates may have received a request for evidence (RFE), then they could also include the RFE response with the premium processing request.

“USCIS will resume premium processing on Tuesday, March 12^th, for all H-1B petitions,” the agency said on its website. “If you received a request for evidence (RFE) for a pending petition, you should include the RFE response with the premium processing request. When an H-1B petitioner properly requests the agency’s premium processing service, USCIS guarantees a 15-day processing time. If we do not take certain adjudicative action within the 15‑calendar day processing time, USCIS refunds the petitioner’s premium processing service fee and continues with expedited processing of the petition,” the USCIS said.

According to USCIS, if you received a transfer notice for a pending H1B petition and you are requesting premium processing service, you must have to submit the premium processing request to the service center which is handling the petition now.

Under premium processing, petitions are processed within 15 days. Generally, it takes between 3 and 5 months for USCIS to process work visas.

Even though this process cuts waiting time, this is very rarely used for its high price. For every application submitted for premium processing, an additional fee of about $1,410 is levied over and above the base fee.

Many IT companies choose to sponsor the service for their employees to make the process easy.