Consular Cost of Service Study Data Set (FY2010 Figures): Nonimmigrant Visa Fees

Non-petition-based Nonimmigrant Visas (except E category)

and Border Crossing Cards H, L, O, P, Q or R Visas (petition-based categories) 

Direct Trace Assigned Allocated Total Direct 

Trace Assigned Allocated Total 

Provide Information Services to 

Potential Applicants $107,852,048 $107,852,048 $9,148,293 $9,148,293

Visa Enrollment & Processing $115,993,867 $91,987,742 $207,981,609 $10,346,190 $8,506,613 $18,852,803

Visa Adjudication $132,352,708 $132,352,708 $3,090,276 $3,090,276

Visa Production/Post-Issuance $1,632,174 $28,126,291 $29,758,465 $135,913 $2,471,162 $2,607,076

Overseas Management $41,125,604 $41,125,604 $4,636,460 $4,636,460

Overseas Cashiering/Internal 

Controls $12,246,515 $12,246,515 $1,445,793 $1,445,793

Fraud Prevention & Detection $34,488,015 $34,488,015 $4,167,746 $4,167,746

Public Affairs $843,959 $843,959 $75,490 $75,490

Consular Affairs Management $4,257,210 $4,257,210 $2,292,344 $2,292,344

 Systems Support $27,421,483 $27,421,483 $8,440,490 $8,440,490

Other Bureau Support 

Functional Bureaus $28,482,736 $124,377,939 $152,860,675 $7,158,970 $11,183,789 $18,342,759

Regional Bureaus $24,884,385 $34,062,472 $58,946,857 $2,225,854 $3,046,813 $5,272,667

Support Bureaus $41,790,045 $41,790,045 $3,738,028 $3,738,028

ICASS $32,469,800 $32,469,800 $2,904,352 $2,904,352

Total $117,626,041 $534,068,696 $232,700,255 $884,394,991 $10,482,103 $53,659,490 $20,872,982 $85,014,576

Number of Applications Anticipated 

in FY2010 6,458,906 573,789 

Unit Cost (note: does not include 

Wilberforce surcharge or GSS start-up 

costs) $136.93 $148.16

Fee $140 $150

E Visas (treaty-trader or treaty-investor) K Visas (fiancé(e)s and certain spouses of U.S. citizens)

Direct Trace Assigned Allocated Total Direct 

Trace Assigned Allocated Total 

Provide Information Services to 

Potential Applicants $1,318,458 $1,318,458 $3,131,968 $3,131,968

Visa Enrollment & Processing $1,410,274 $4,436,411 $5,846,685 $3,781,697 $7,280,593 $11,062,291

Visa Adjudication $1,730,955 $1,730,955 $1,760,865 $1,760,865

Visa Production/Post-Issuance $19,329 $313,531 $332,860 $146,248 $619,150 $765,398
Overseas Management $808,040 $808,040 $1,547,689 $1,547,689

Overseas Cashiering/Internal 

Controls $278,320 $278,320 $487,211 $487,211

Fraud Prevention & Detection $609,833 $609,833 $2,903,647 $2,903,647

Public Affairs $10,290 $10,290 $25,210 $25,210

Consular Affairs Management $659,925 $659,925 $762,689 $762,689

 Systems Support $2,246,205 $2,246,205 $2,774,541 $2,774,541

Other Bureau Support 

Functional Bureaus $406,818 $1,631,047 $2,037,864 $996,703 $3,971,732 $4,968,435

Regional Bureaus $303,403 $415,307 $718,710 $743,337 $1,017,501 $1,760,839

Support Bureaus $509,525 $509,525 $0 $1,248,337 $1,248,337

ICASS $395,888 $395,888 $0 $969,926 $969,926

Total $1,429,604 $13,122,187 $2,951,767 $17,503,558 $3,927,945 $23,033,604 $7,207,496 $34,169,046

 

Number of Applications Anticipated 

in FY2010 44,814 98,077 

Unit Cost (note: does not include 

Wilberforce surcharge or GSS start-up 

costs) $390.58 $348.39

Fee $390 $350

Provide Information Services to Potential Applicants Assigned costs include the cost of staff time needed to conduct overseas outreach associated with 

nonimmigrant visas (NIVs), including: publishing information about NIVs on individual embassy/consulate websites; providing "Ask the Consul" programs aimed to 

better inform applicants; conducting outreach campaigns about changes to visa requirements or application procedures; and responding to public inquiries.

Visa Enrollment & Processing Direct trace costs include the fees charged by the FBI to the Department of State to conduct fingerprint checks and name checks.

Assigned costs include the cost of overseas and domestic staff time needed to perform intake of nonimmigrant visa applications, manage appointment systems and 

schedules, collect applicant biometrics, and run initial reviews of facial recognition results, preparing applicant information for review and adjudication by an officer. 

Visa Adjudication Assigned costs include the cost of overseas Foreign Service Officer time dedicated to determining whether an applicant may be issued a 

particular visa, including: verifying applicant biometrics, determining if applicant qualifies for a particular visa class, and determining if there are any ineligibilities that 

prevent issuance of the visa to a particular applicant. As a rule, this includes the time spent conducting in-person interviews of these applicants. This line item also 

includes the costs of officers preparing requests for security advisory opinions (SAOs) and legal advisory opinions (AOs) if required. In the case of petition-based 

applicants, it also includes the costs of activities that are not required for non-petition cases, such as receiving petition information from DHS, conducting reviews of 

government and commercial databases to confirm the existence of the petitioning business, and entering that data into the Petition Information Management 

Service (PIMS) database.

Visa Production/Post-Issuance Direct trace costs include the costs of blank visa foils and border crossing card materials. Assigned costs include the cost of staff time 

(primarily overseas) needed to print nonimmigrant visas, perform quality assurance checks on issued visas, return visas to applicants, and archive the actual visa 

application forms. 

Overseas Management Assigned costs include the cost of overseas staff time needed to oversee consular staff, facilities, and budgets. As an example, the Bureau of 

Consular Affairs employs close to 5,700 staff around the world, including more than 3600 locally engaged staff who work at embassies and consulates overseas. This 

line item includes the cost of the time spent by overseas supervisors in managing, mentoring, and evaluating those staff. 

Overseas Cashiering/Internal Controls Assigned costs include the cost of staff time required to collect NIV fees, to oversee cashiering, to perform required 

reconciliation of fee collection against services provided, and to perform internal controls ensuring accountable items (such as blank visa foils) are properly stored, 

used and destroyed. 
Fraud Prevention & Detection Assigned costs include the costs of domestic and overseas staff time: training consular staff on general fraud prevention and detection; 

conducting inquiries and investigations of suspected fraud; developing, testing and implementing new fraud detection tools and techniques (at headquarters); 

training foreign immigration officials about U.S. documents to prevent the use or forged or altered documents; and performing audits to ensure internal controls and 

reconciliation of controlled supplies have been performed. 

Public Affairs Assigned costs include the cost of domestic Consular Affairs staff time needed for conducting outreach associated with nonimmigrant visas, including

publishing information about NIVs on travel.state.gov, and producing written pamphlets intended to combat human trafficking and inform temporary workers about 

their rights. 

Consular Affairs Management Assigned costs include the cost of domestic Consular Affairs Executive Directorate staff time dedicated to issues including staff, 

facilities, and budgets for overseas consular sections. Annually, this office conducts an analysis of staffing needs and workload at overseas consular sections, 

identifying posts that have excess positions or require additional positions and reducing or increasing staff as required. This office also performs functions including: 

assigns officers to consular positions; evaluates requests for consular fee funding and allots the approved funding; ships controlled items to overseas posts; and 

oversees human resources services for consular agents.

Systems Support Assigned costs include the cost of Government employee and contractor time needed to develop and maintain the hardware and software used 

by consular staff to adjudicate and produce nonimmigrant visas. This includes the systems that allow us to conduct namechecks, fingerprint checks and facial 

recognition checks of visa applicants. Systems support also includes the cost of making visa data available to other U.S. Government agencies to ensure that, for 

instance, Department of Homeland Security inspectors have access to electronic records and do not have to rely solely on the physical visa. This line item also 

includes the cost of training staff to use these systems and providing help desk assistance.

Other Bureau Support (Functional, Regional & Support Bureaus) 

Functional Bureaus: Diplomatic Security, Resource Management, Information Resource Management, Foreign Service Institute, Intelligence and Research, Human 

Resources, and Administration. Assigned costs include the rents the Bureau of Administration pays on CA's behalf at the Kentucky Consular Center and National Visa 

Center, as well as consular fee revenues allotted to specific activities, such as consular training performed by FSI. Allocated costs include a share of all other costs of 

these bureaus representing the staff time those bureaus spend supporting consular activities.

Regional Bureaus: African Affairs, East Asian & Pacific Affairs, European & Eurasian Affairs, Near Eastern Affairs, South & Central Asian Affairs, and Western Hemisphere 

Affairs. Assigned costs include consular fee revenues allotted to specific posts to support specified local costs, such as printing, supplies, or bank fees for offsite fee 

collection arrangements. Allocated costs include a share of all other costs of these bureaus representing the staff time those bureaus spend supporting consular 

activities.

Support Bureaus: Overseas Building Operations, Legislative Affairs, Public Affairs, the Office of the Legal Adviser, the Office of Medical Services, the Office of the 

Undersecretary for Management, and the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. Allocated costs include a share of the costs of these bureaus representing 

the staff time those bureaus spend supporting consular activities.

ICASS Allocated costs include a portion of the Department of State's overall ICASS costs. The International Cooperative Administrative Support Services (ICASS) 

system is the means by which the Department distributes throughout the Department and to other agencies, the costs of shared administrative support at embassies 

and consulates overseas. The Consular Cost of Service Study (CoSS) as a whole includes not all Department of State ICASS costs, but rather only the share of those 

costs equal to the share of consular “desks” at all embassies and consulates; this line item represents a portion of that smaller amount, which was assigned equally 

within the model to all overseas services. 

Sources of Data:

 For a detailed discussion of how costs were identified and assigned or allocated to specific consular services, see Public Notice 6928 published in the Federal 

Register (75 Fed Reg 14111) on March 24, 2010.

 CA gathered data on compensation rates and staff counts to identify total compensation costs, and surveyed CA personnel to determine how much of that 

time and/or cost should be assigned to particular activities. To estimate how much time consular staff overseas spend on consular activities, the Department 

asked consular officers at 200 overseas posts to complete a 98-question survey. This survey asked Consular Affairs personnel to break out the time they spend on 

each consular activity they perform during a typical month – visa interviews, visa adjudication, passport adjudication, performing welfare and whereabouts visits, 

responding to judicial assistance requests from American citizens abroad, notarizing documents for American citizens abroad, issuing consular reports of birth 

abroad, and so forth. The responses to the survey were then used to develop resource drivers that assign labor costs to activities. To give one example, in the 

survey responses, foreign service national (FSN) employees in Mumbai, India, indicated that as a whole they spent 6,586 hours on consular activities in a typical 

month, of which 955 hours (14.5% of their time) were spent on performing nonimmigrant visa application intake. Total annual compensation for Mumbai FSNs was 

$783,988. Based on the percentage calculated above, 14.5% of their compensation, or $113,678, was calculated as the cost of this one activity for this one post 

for this one labor category.
 Other data gathered for CA included non-labor costs like supplies, travel, and printing from State’s Global Financial Management System (GFMS) and actual visa 

volumes by year by visa type.

 For other bureaus, the CoSS team consulted with the involved bureaus to determine what lines of their Congressional Budget Justifications covering the year in 

question involved support for consular work, and then allocated these costs using various calculations. For instance, the Human Resources bureau costs were 

included in the CoSS and allocated based on the percentage of CA personnel as a share of all State personnel worldwide, Information Resource Management 

costs were allocated based on the percentage of CA "desks" overseas as a share of all State "desks," and Resource Management costs were allocated based 

on the percentage of CA budgets as a share of all State budgets.