The $102 Annual Asylum Fee: Who Pays, and What a Federal Court Just Blocked

If you have a pending asylum application, you now owe a fee every single year it stays pending. It is called the Annual Asylum Fee, it is currently $102, and there is no fee waiver — not for low income, not for hardship, not for any reason.

You have probably also heard that missing it gets your asylum application thrown out and your work permit cancelled. That was the plan. A federal court has blocked USCIS from doing it, and that block is still in place. But the block does not cover immigration court, and it is temporary. Both halves of that sentence matter, so here is the whole picture.

What the fee is and when it is due

The Annual Asylum Fee comes from the 2025 reconciliation law (H.R. 1). DHS wrote it into the regulations through an interim final rule, USCIS Immigration Fees and Related Procedures Required by H.R.1 Reconciliation Bill, published April 29, 2026 at 91 FR 22952 and effective May 29, 2026. That rule codifies, in the agency's words, "the asylum and annual asylum fees, including the consequences of non-payment of these fees."

The mechanics are straightforward and unforgiving. The fee started at $100 and is adjusted for inflation each year; it rose to $102 effective January 1, 2026. It comes due on the one-year anniversary of the date you filed Form I-589, and again every year the application is still pending. It must be paid online. There is no fee waiver available. This is separate from the $100 fee to file the I-589 in the first place, and separate again from work permit fees, which under the same law run $550 for an initial Form I-765 and $275 for a renewal in the asylum, parole and TPS categories.

USCIS is supposed to send a notice telling you the fee is due, how much, how to pay, and what happens if you do not, and the notice gives 30 days. The practical problem is that notices go astray. Advocacy organizations working with asylum seekers report that some people never receive one and only discover the fee by checking their USCIS account. A missed notice is not a defense, so do not wait for mail.

The penalties, and the court order stopping them

As written, non-payment was severe: USCIS would reject the pending Form I-589, and any work permit resting on that pending application would end with it. Rejection could also open the door to removal proceedings. The scale was not small. USCIS was prepared to reject 227,186 pending asylum applications and terminate hundreds of thousands of work permits.

That did not happen. On July 21, 2026, Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts temporarily blocked those consequences, and on August 5 and 6, 2026 the court continued the block. The core reasoning is administrative, not humanitarian: the court found the penalty provisions likely required notice-and-comment rulemaking before they could be imposed.

What remains blocked today is specific. USCIS cannot reject an asylum application solely because the Annual Asylum Fee went unpaid, cannot terminate work authorization on that basis alone, and cannot take removal-related action tied only to non-payment. As a consequence of the litigation, on August 13, 2026 the government also reopened payment windows that had already expired.

It is worth being precise about what the same court did not block. In the August 6 ruling it narrowed its earlier order and allowed USCIS to proceed with a one-year cap on TPS-based work permits. That part concerns TPS, not asylum, but it is a reminder that these orders are granular and that a headline about "work permits protected" can be true and incomplete at the same time.

The gap that catches people: immigration court

This is the part that gets flattened in most coverage, and it is the part most likely to hurt someone.

The block applies to USCIS. If your asylum case is in immigration court before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, it does not protect you. An immigration judge can still require payment, and missing a judge's deadline can lead to your asylum application being denied or dismissed. A separate lawsuit is challenging the immigration court's implementation of the fee, and it has not produced the same relief. If you are in removal proceedings, treat the fee as due and pay it.

What to do

Pay it if you can, even with the block in place. The block is temporary and rests on a procedural defect the government can try to cure by running a proper rulemaking. Paying keeps you out of the argument entirely.

Check your USCIS online account rather than waiting for a notice, and check around your filing anniversary. That anniversary is the trigger, so if you know your I-589 filing date you know roughly when to look.

Keep proof of every payment, with dates and confirmation numbers. In a system that has already reopened expired payment windows once, your own records are the only thing that reliably survives.

And keep your work permit timeline separate in your head from your fee timeline. They are different deadlines with different consequences. If you are not sure where your work permit eligibility stands, our guide to checking your EAD clock covers how to read it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the Annual Asylum Fee and can I get a waiver?

It is $102 as of January 1, 2026, up from $100, and it is adjusted for inflation each year. No fee waiver is available for any reason, including inability to pay. It must be paid online.

If I already missed a payment, has my asylum application been rejected?

Not by USCIS. The court order blocks USCIS from rejecting a pending asylum application or terminating a work permit solely for non-payment, and in August 2026 the government reopened payment windows that had already closed. Check your USCIS online account for current status and pay as soon as you can.

Does the court order protect me if my case is in immigration court?

No. The block covers USCIS. If your asylum case is before an immigration judge, the judge can still require payment, and missing that deadline can result in your asylum application being denied or dismissed. A separate lawsuit over the immigration court's version of the fee is ongoing.

Do I owe the fee every year, or only once?

Every year your Form I-589 remains pending. It first comes due on the one-year anniversary of your filing date and recurs annually after that until your case is decided.

Sources

Primary sources for this article: the Federal Register entry for the USCIS interim final rule on H.R.1 immigration fees, 91 FR 22952 (Apr. 29, 2026), the USCIS alert on fees under H.R. 1, and ASAP's tracker for the VAM v. USCIS litigation, which follows the court orders described here.

Litigation moves. This article states the position as of its publication date and is general information, not legal advice about your case.