Info for U.S. Citizens

[fred mertz]

New Prices:

New U.S. Passport US$150.00
Visa for foreigners going to U.S. US$150.00 up from US$131.00
New Pages added to current passport US82.00

 

[sesamosinsal]

Where is the press release announcing that the fee increase has gone into effect? As far as I knew, this was just a proposal. Also, the travel/business/student visas were only proposed to go up to $140, not $150.

http://www.travel.state.gov/news/press/press_4603.html

 

[citygirl]

And according to the US Consulate here in Arg & the State Dept - NO FEE for extra pages for your passport (unless you require expedited services).

If you have proof of what you wrote, please post links as I can find nothing that substantiates what you posted.

 

[sesamosinsal]

And according to the US Consulate here in Arg & the State Dept - NO FEE for extra pages for your passport (unless you require expedited services).

If you have proof of what you wrote, please post links as I can find nothing that substantiates what you posted.

Correct. In January 2009, I had pages added to my passport at the consular section in Buenos Aires. It was free; I just had to sit around for an hour looking at the wall. (Can I pretty, pretty please have my cellphone next time?)

 

[SuperPilot]

Yeah.. I had some pages added in Costa Rica. Free and about 20 minutes.

If you're going to throw out random numbers you should cite your sources.

 

[Popper]

ditto - new pages in the passport is a free service provided to you by the US of A - I did it last June and it was free. $82 is hilarious.

 

[argsteve]

I just got more pages added to my US passport a week ago... the lady at the embassy said I was lucky because in a week or 2 it was going to be 82 dollars... so I think this is CORRECT... every country is looking for money... times are a changing!!! no more free lunches...

 

[sesamosinsal]

There was nothing mentioned regarding passport pages in the press releases, so I went to Regulations.gov to read the proposed rule. According to the rule, there would be a fee imposed in order have visa pages added:

In the past, the Department provided extra pages in a customer's
passport, to which foreign countries' visas may then be affixed, at no
charge. The CoSS found that the cost of the pages themselves, of having
the pages placed in the book in a secure manner by trained personnel,
and of completing the required security checks results in a cost to the
U.S. Government of $82.48 based on a projected FY10 workload of
218,000. Therefore, the Department will charge $82 for this service.

Here is the full text of the proposed rule. You can comment on the proposed rule until March 11. These fee increases have not been put into place yet, although it's likely that they will be.

The OP is correct about the visa fee increasing to $150 for some visas, but not tourist, business or student/exchange visas. The proposed increase for those visas is $140 USD. (Point being: The fee at Ezeiza will likely increase from $131 to $140 USD.)

I find it rather unbelievable that it costs the Department of State more than $17,000,000 per year to add pages to a passport. What kind of work could they possibly have to do in an hour (or 20 minutes, as one poster has said) that warrants a cost of $82 USD?

 

[fred mertz]

The website is www.liveadinvestoverseas.com. The woman who sends me (spam) emails almost daily is Kathleen Peddicord,

 

[SuperPilot]

What kind of work could they possibly have to do in an hour (or 20 minutes, as one poster has said) that warrants a cost of $82 USD?

I just don't see it... It's 20 of the new style pages just taped into the middle. Basically looks like packaging tape. And it's not even square, kinda close, but come on, I could have done a better job.