What a US F-1 Visa Actually Costs in 2027: The $250 Visa Integrity Fee, SEVIS, MRV and the Refund Nobody Explains

By Rajshekar Tubachi, Founder, Maven Consulting Services, Bengaluru · 15+ years in international education

Ask a family what the US student visa will cost and you will usually hear one number: the fee they paid to book the interview, about ₹17,900. That is only about a third of the real bill.

Today, an Indian F-1 student pays two US government charges: the SEVIS I-901 fee and the MRV application fee. A third, the $250 Visa Integrity Fee, is already law but is not being collected from F-1 students in India. It also comes with a promise most guides skip straight past: a visa integrity fee refund for students who follow every rule. Both the fee and the refund are written into the statute. Neither has reached Indian students yet.

This matters now for two reasons. Fall 2027 families are building loan budgets this month, and many have been told by websites and agents that they must pay $785. They do not, at least not today. But a fee that is law and not yet collected can switch on with little notice, so it still deserves a line in the plan.

Below you will find what you actually pay today, in the order you pay it, why the Visa Integrity Fee is not on your bill, what would change if collection starts, what the refund law says, and how it would play out for the six paths most Indian students take after an American master’s. If you are still choosing a destination, start with our Study in USA guide and our complete US student visa cost guide.

Who This Blog Is For

• Indian students with a Spring or Fall 2027 US admit, or applications going out this autumn
• Parents building the visa line of an education loan budget
• Students who have been told they must pay a $250 Visa Integrity Fee, or that it is refundable
• Anyone planning OPT, STEM OPT or an H-1B after a US degree
• Married applicants whose spouse will travel on an F-2 visa

What This Blog Covers

• The two fees you pay today, in the order you pay them, in dollars and rupees
• Why the Visa Integrity Fee is not being charged to Indian F-1 students right now
• The inflation clause that means $250 may not stay $250
• The refund law, line by line, in plain English
• Six common student paths and how the refund wording applies to each
• What happens to each fee if your visa is refused or put under 221(g)
• A record-keeping checklist that protects a possible refund from your first day

What Does a US F-1 Visa Cost in 2027?

A US F-1 visa costs an Indian student $535 in government fees today, about ₹51,600 at a planning rate of ₹96.5 to the dollar. Here is what you pay, in the order you pay it.

The SEVIS amount is confirmed on ICE’s I-901 fee page, and the $185 figure for F visas on the State Department’s Fees for Visa Services page. Pay the SEVIS fee only at fmjfee.com, the official portal.

The $250 Visa Integrity Fee is not in this table because Indian consulates are not collecting it from F-1 students right now. If that changes, it would be charged only after your visa is approved, at the moment of issuance, and your total would rise to $785, about ₹75,750. We explain the fee, and its refund, in the rest of this article.

Two details from the State Department’s India reciprocity table matter later in this article. India pays no visa issuance fee for F-1 visas, and F-1 visas for Indian nationals can be issued for up to 60 months with multiple entries. Keep that 60-month figure in mind when we get to the refund.

For how these fees sit alongside tuition deposits, I-20 funding letters and living costs, see our complete US student visa cost guide and our six-country comparison of what a master’s abroad costs.

Why Are Indian F-1 Students Not Paying the Visa Integrity Fee?

Because collection has not started for F-1 students at Indian posts. The fee was created by law in July 2025, but a law that creates a fee does not collect it. The government has to set up the collection process, and for Indian students that has not happened yet. Here is what the official record shows as of 7 October 2026.

• The State Department’s Fees for Visa Services page lists the $185 application fee for F visas and makes no mention of a Visa Integrity Fee.
• The US Mission India visa page carries notices on interview location and social media settings, but nothing on the integrity fee.
• The only Federal Register notice that deals with the fee is the 22 July 2025 USCIS notice, which says the fee needs cross-agency coordination and will be implemented in a future publication. We found no later implementation notice.
• Outside India, Boston University’s international office reported in May 2026 that some students were being charged the fee at some consular posts, so collection is possible and may spread.

Meanwhile, many Indian websites still tell students to add $250 to their visa cost, and some claim it must be paid before the interview. None of them links to an official notice, and the payment-before-interview claim contradicts the law itself, which ties the fee to visa issuance.

One correction of our own. Our August cost guide said that most posts in India were collecting the fee by mid-2026. That is not the case for F-1 students, and we are correcting that page.

If Collection Starts, Will the Visa Integrity Fee Be $250? The Inflation Clause

Not necessarily. $250 is the legal floor, not a fixed price. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1806, the fee for US fiscal year 2025 was the greater of $250 or a higher amount set by DHS rule. From fiscal year 2026 onward, each year’s fee equals the previous year’s fee plus the rise in the consumer price index for urban consumers (CPI-U).

The US fiscal year 2027 began on 1 October 2026. As of 7 October, DHS has not published an inflation-adjusted figure in the Federal Register, and reports from posts outside India mention $250. DHS can also raise the fee by rule, beyond the inflation adjustment, at any time.

The practical answer is to keep about ₹25,000 in reserve for this line rather than the exact rupee value of $250, and to check your consulate’s instructions on the day your visa is issued.

Who Pays the Visa Integrity Fee, and Who Does Not?

On paper, the law applies the fee to every person issued a nonimmigrant visa, at the time of issuance, and says it cannot be waived or reduced. In India today, F-1 students and their dependants are not being charged it. This is what each applicant pays now, and what would be added if collection starts.

For a married student travelling with a spouse, today’s government fees come to $720, about ₹69,500, before a single rupee of tuition. If collection starts, each person would pay a separate integrity fee, taking the couple to $1,220, about ₹1.18 lakh.

Students already in the US on a valid F-1 visa pay nothing until they need a new visa stamp, typically when the old one expires and they travel abroad. Every new stamp means a new $185, and a new integrity fee if collection has started by then.

What Does the Law Say About the Visa Integrity Fee Refund?

The refund sits in subsection (b) of 8 U.S.C. § 1806, which was created by section 100007 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on 4 July 2025. It matters to Indian students only once the fee is collected from them, but it is worth understanding now. Read slowly, it says four things.

1. It is discretionary. DHS ‘may’ provide a reimbursement. The law does not say ‘shall’, so a refund is permitted, not guaranteed.
2. It comes only after the visa expires. Reimbursement is possible only after the visa’s period of validity has ended, not after your degree ends or when you leave the US.
3. You must prove full compliance. You have to demonstrate that, after entering on that visa, you complied with all of its conditions, including the condition not to work without authorisation.
4. You must have left on time, or been granted more time. Either you did not seek to extend your period of admission and you left within five days after it ended, or, while the visa was valid, you were granted an extension of that status or a green card.

Two smaller points sit around this. The word ‘demonstrates’ puts the burden of proof on you, not on the government. And any fee that is not reimbursed goes into the US Treasury’s general fund.

What does not exist yet is everything you would need to act on it: no form, no portal, no published evidence list, and no word on how a refund would reach an Indian bank account.

When Could You Actually Claim It? The Visa-Expiry Problem

This is the part almost nobody explains. The refund clock runs on the visa stamp in your passport, not on your stay in the US.

Take a student who is charged the fee on a 60-month F-1 visa issued in June 2027. That visa is valid until about June 2032. Even if that student finishes a two-year master’s in May 2029 and flies home the same month, the law allows a refund only after June 2032. Five years is a long time to keep receipts, and longer for a policy to change.

If your visa is issued for a shorter period, the wait is shorter. If you renew your visa during your studies after collection has started, you pay a fresh integrity fee for the new stamp, and that fee has its own clock running from its own expiry date.

Visa Integrity Fee Refund for F-1 Students: Six Common Paths

Here is how the refund wording would line up with the routes our students actually take after a US master’s, for anyone who pays the fee. This is our reading of the statute’s plain language. DHS has not said how it will interpret any of it, and this is not legal advice.

Path 4 matters most, because it is the plan for most Indian students in computer science, data and engineering. The refund wording simply was not written with the F-1 to H-1B route in mind. Our guide to the H-1B fee for Fall 2027 students covers that route in full; for the refund, the honest position is that nobody knows yet.

There is a second moving part. Under Duration of Status, an F-1 student has no fixed end date on the I-94, which makes ‘the last day of such period’ hard to pin down. The rule that would have replaced D/S with fixed dates is currently blocked in court, as we explain in our Duration of Status update. If that rule ever takes effect, the refund conditions would apply to a very different set of dates.

Unauthorised work is the condition most likely to sink a refund. It covers more than you may think: on-campus hours above 20 a week during term, any off-campus work without CPT or OPT approval, and CPT that was not properly authorised. Our Day 1 CPT guide explains why that last one deserves careful checking before you pay any deposit.

What Happens to Each Fee If Your Visa Is Refused or Put on 221(g)?

Each fee behaves differently when an interview does not end in an issued visa.

• Refused under 214(b): the $185 MRV fee is gone. Even once collection starts, the Visa Integrity Fee is never charged on a refusal, because no visa was issued. According to ICE’s SEVIS fee FAQ, you do not pay the SEVIS fee again if you reapply within 12 months of your original SEVIS payment. Your next interview needs a new MRV payment.
• Placed under 221(g) administrative processing: no visa has been issued yet. If collection has started by the time your case clears, the integrity fee falls due only when the visa is finally issued. The MRV fee you paid covers that application.
• Reapplying after 12 months: a fresh SEVIS fee may apply as well as a new MRV fee, so timing a second attempt carefully saves money.

Our guide to F-1 visa refusals under 214(b) and 221(g) covers what to change before a second attempt.

What Other Costs Sit Around the Visa?

The government fees are the fixed part. A few smaller costs sit around them, and families often forget them because none of them appears on an official fee page.

• Travel to the consulate city. Bengaluru has no US consulate, so most students from Karnataka travel to Chennai or Hyderabad for the biometrics appointment and the interview, sometimes on two separate days.
• Card mark-up. The SEVIS fee is paid in dollars by international card, so your bank’s foreign currency mark-up applies.
• Photographs, printing and courier for documents and the passport return.
• University-side payments such as enrolment deposits and I-20 courier charges. These go to the university, not the government, and have nothing to do with visa fees.

None of these is large on its own, but together they can add a few thousand rupees. For how small foreign payments are treated under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme and TCS, see our education loan, TCS and forex guide.

One non-financial requirement belongs on the same checklist. The US Mission India page instructs F applicants to set their social media accounts to public. We will cover what that means in practice in our upcoming guide to social media vetting for US student visas.

How to Protect a Possible Refund From Day One

You are not paying the fee today, but the records a refund would require are the same records you will need for OPT, an H-1B petition and any future green card. Start the file before you fly.

1. If you are ever charged the Visa Integrity Fee, save the receipt as a PDF and a printout, and check that your name matches your passport exactly. Do the same with your SEVIS and MRV receipts now.
2. Keep every I-20 you are issued, including the final one showing your programme completion or OPT recommendation.
3. Download your I-94 travel history from CBP’s I-94 website after every entry and after your final departure. The US does not stamp passports on exit, so this history is your best record that you left on time.
4. Keep every EAD card and approval notice for OPT and STEM OPT, plus your STEM OPT training plan if you have one.
5. Keep offer letters and payslips that show you worked only with authorisation and within the hour limits.
6. Keep flight tickets and boarding passes for your final departure.
7. Put your visa expiry date in a calendar with a reminder. If you have paid the integrity fee, that date, not your graduation, is when a refund claim would open.

If you are moving on to STEM OPT, our guide to which master’s degrees qualify for STEM OPT explains how to check your degree before you rely on that extension.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a US student visa cost in 2027 for Indian students?

$535 in US government fees today: the $350 SEVIS I-901 fee and the $185 MRV fee, about ₹51,600 at ₹96.5 to the dollar. The $250 Visa Integrity Fee is not being collected from F-1 students in India as of October 2026. If collection starts, the total rises to $785, about ₹75,750. India pays no separate visa issuance fee for F-1 visas.

Is the Visa Integrity Fee being collected in India?

No. As of 7 October 2026, Indian consulates are not collecting it from F-1 students. The State Department’s fee page does not list it, the US Mission India visa page has no notice about it, and DHS has published no implementation notice since July 2025. It remains law, so keep about ₹25,000 in reserve in case collection starts.

Is the Visa Integrity Fee refundable?

Possibly, for anyone who pays it. The law allows DHS to reimburse it, but does not require DHS to do so. You must show you complied with all visa conditions, including no unauthorised work, and either left within five days after your authorised stay ended or were granted an extension of status or a green card. No refund process has been published.

When can I claim the Visa Integrity Fee refund?

Only after your visa’s period of validity expires, not when you finish your degree or leave the US. F-1 visas for Indian nationals can be issued for up to 60 months, so a student issued a visa in June 2027 might not be able to claim until mid-2032.

Do I pay the Visa Integrity Fee if my F-1 visa is refused?

No. Indian F-1 applicants are not being charged it at all right now, and even once collection starts, the fee is charged only when a visa is issued, so a refused applicant never pays it. The $185 MRV fee is not refunded after a refusal.

Does my spouse on an F-2 visa pay the Visa Integrity Fee?

Not in India right now. Today your spouse pays only the $185 MRV fee and no SEVIS fee. Under the law, F-2 dependants are covered by the integrity fee, so if collection starts, your spouse would pay $250 at issuance as well.

Will I get the Visa Integrity Fee refund if I move from F-1 to H-1B?

Nobody knows yet. The law’s refund conditions mention an extension of the same status or a green card, but not a change of status to a different category such as H-1B. DHS has not said how it will treat this route.

Do I pay the SEVIS fee again if my visa is refused?

Not if you reapply within 12 months of your original SEVIS payment. ICE’s guidance says the earlier payment can be used for the new application. You do need to pay a new $185 MRV fee.

Do I pay the Visa Integrity Fee again when I renew my F-1 visa?

Only if collection has started by the time you renew. Under the law, the fee applies to every visa issuance, so each new visa stamp would carry its own integrity fee, with its own refund conditions tied to its own expiry date.

The Short Version

A US F-1 visa costs an Indian student $535 today, about ₹51,600, made up of the $350 SEVIS fee and the $185 MRV fee. The $250 Visa Integrity Fee is law but is not being collected from F-1 students in India as of October 2026; if it starts, the total becomes $785.

The visa integrity fee refund also exists in law, but it is discretionary, opens only after your visa stamp expires, depends on full compliance and on how you leave or stay, and has no claim process yet. It is unclear for students who move to H-1B. Plan on $535, keep ₹25,000 in reserve, keep your records from day one, and check your consulate’s instructions before you pay anything.

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Read More

• US Student Visa Cost: The Complete, Honest Fee Guide
• Why ‘Perfect’ F-1 Interview Prep Still Gets Rejected: 214(b), 221(g)
• A Judge Has Blocked the Four-Year F-1 Limit: What Changes, What Doesn’t, and What Fall 2027 Students Should Do Now
• Funding a 2027 Master’s From India: Education Loans, the 2% TCS, Collateral, and the Forex Mistakes That Cost Lakhs

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Sources: 8 U.S.C. § 1806 (Visa integrity fee), enacted by section 100007 of Public Law 119-21 (H.R. 1), 4 July 2025; USCIS notice ‘Immigration Fees Required by HR-1 Reconciliation Bill’, Federal Register, 22 July 2025; US Department of State, Fees for Visa Services and India reciprocity schedule; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, I-901 SEVIS Fee and I-901 SEVIS Fee FAQ; US Embassy and Consulates in India, Visas page; Boston University International Students and Scholars Office, Visa Integrity Fee notice, 19 May 2026.

Collection status for India reflects Maven’s position as of 7 October 2026 and the absence of any official collection notice. Rupee figures use ₹96.5 to the dollar (7 October 2026) and are planning estimates; your card or bank rate will differ. Status current as of 7 October 2026. This article is general information for Indian students and families, not immigration or legal advice. For advice on your own case, speak to a qualified US immigration attorney.