SEVIS Fee Guide: I-901 Cost, Payment and Receipts

What the I-901 Fee Funds

Form I-901, Fee Remittance for Certain F, J and M Nonimmigrants, is the mechanism by which prospective students and exchange visitors pay for the infrastructure that tracks them. The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System is the Department of Homeland Security database holding the record your school maintains: your enrollment, your address, your funding, your employment authorizations and your compliance history. Congress tied the fee to Public Law 104-208, Subtitle D, Section 641, and it has been collected since 2004. What matters practically is that the fee is a federal payment to DHS, made against the SEVIS ID printed on your I-20 or DS-2019, and that nothing else you pay substitutes for it.

Three payments get confused constantly, so separate them now. The visa application fee, sometimes called the MRV fee, is paid to the Department of State for your interview and is also non-refundable but buys something different. The institutional SEVIS fee or SEVIS administration fee, if your school or sponsor charges one, is a private charge covering their compliance costs and is not paid to SEVP — if a school collects it, ask whether it is the government fee, because if it is not, you still owe the I-901 separately. The I-901 itself is the one that must appear on fmjfee.com against your SEVIS ID. Paying the wrong one, or paying twice because you thought the school had covered it, are the two most expensive early mistakes in the process.

How Much the Fee Costs

The headline figures have been stable since the June 24, 2019 fee adjustment and are set out in 8 CFR 214.13. An applicant for F-1 or F-3 status at an SEVP-certified institution pays $350, as does an applicant for M-1 or M-3 status at a certified vocational institution including flight schools. An applicant for J-1 status to begin a Department of State designated exchange program pays $220. Within the J world a set of subsidized categories pays a reduced $35: the summer work/travel program, the au pair program, the camp counselor program and similar short, lower-cost placements. Finally, certain visitors pay nothing at all.

Read the amount as a property of the SEVIS record rather than of the visa stamp. One person changing from F-1 to a new initial record does not automatically inherit the previous payment, but a great many situations are expressly exempt from paying again — a J-1 transferring between programs in the same exchange visitor category where no differential fee exists, an F-1 or J-1 requesting an extension of stay in a single program, or someone changing classification between F-1 and F-3 or between M-1 and M-3. Because the exemptions are written into the regulation rather than applied by intuition, if you think one applies, confirm it with your DSO or sponsor before paying: an unnecessary payment is not returned, and a missing payment stops everything downstream.

Who Pays and Who Is Exempt

The fee attaches to the principal applicant. F-1 and M-1 students pay $350, J-1 exchange visitors pay $220 or $35 in subsidized categories, and a set of privileged visitors pays nothing: federally sponsored exchange visitor programs whose program codes begin with G-1, G-2, G-3 or G-7, and government visitors. The most important exemption for families is that dependents pay no SEVIS fee at all — spouses and children holding F-2, M-2 or J-2 status are recorded as "None" in the fee chart, and 9 FAM confirms that F-2 and M-2 dependents are not required to pay a separate SEVIS fee. Each dependent still needs their own I-20 or DS-2019 with its own SEVIS ID; only the money is waived.

Two further categories of payer matter. Sponsors and schools can pay on your behalf, in bulk — if yours does, ask whether the amount they collected is the government fee, because if it is, a copy of the I-901 confirmation will be provided to you and you can reprint it yourself from fmjfee.com; if it is an institutional charge, you remain liable for the I-901. And anyone already inside the United States who is applying for a change of status to F, M or J, or for reinstatement, must pay the fee before that application is filed — under the I-901 instructions, applications submitted without it are not processed. Third parties may pay for you by card, but bulk filer payments are expressly non-refundable, so a school paying for a student who never enrols eats the cost.

How to Pay the Fee

The official site is fmjfee.com and nowhere else. Enter your SEVIS ID exactly as printed on your I-20 or DS-2019, your family name and your date of birth, then pay in U.S. dollars by credit card. The system confirms immediately in principle and clears after processing; the confirmation you print from that site is your proof of payment, and since July 31, 2013 SEVP no longer mails I-797C receipts at all — the printable confirmation replaced them. Check the URL bar every time, because lookalike domains harvesting student payment details are a standing problem in this niche, and no consulate, school or agent can redirect you to a different payment portal legitimately.

If you cannot or may not pay by card, a paper route exists: download Form I-901 from the SEVP site, complete it, and mail it with a check or money order drawn on a United States bank in United States currency, payable to "I-901 Student/Exchange Visitor Processing Fee", to the St. Louis address printed on the form. Fees must be in the exact amount, and an uncollected check draws a $30 charge. Note the country-specific restriction: prospective F and M students who are citizens of or born in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria or Gambia must pay by money order, Western Union Quick Pay or certified check drawn from a U.S. bank rather than by credit card, while everyone else retains the card option. Western Union Quick Pay is also the route most consulates in high-volume countries have long recommended when card payment fails.

When to Pay, Relative to Your Interview

Regulation requires all prospective F, M and J visitors to pay before the Department of State issues the visa, which in practice means before your consular interview. The precise guidance is comfortably loose in one direction and strict in another: you may schedule the interview appointment before paying the fee, and payment does not have to be completed until you appear for the interview — but allow at least three business days for the payment to be received and verified, and present the printed confirmation at the interview. Paying the morning of the interview in a country where verification runs slow is a gamble you can lose at the window, where a missing fee produces a refusal under 221(g) and weeks of delay rather than a friendly extension.

If you are from a country that does not require a visa, you cannot pay at the border: pay the fee and allow time for processing before you appear at the U.S. port of entry, because the fee cannot be paid there. If you are already in the United States, pay before you file for a change of status or reinstatement. After the September 15, 2026 admission reform, there is one more timing interaction worth knowing: if you will need an extension of stay on Form I-539 to stay past your Admit Until Date, the SEVIS fee position should already be settled before that filing goes in, because USCIS will not adjudicate around it. Travel plans deserve the same caution — see our I-94 record guide for how admission periods are now calculated.

Getting Your Receipt Back

Your receipt is a printed confirmation from fmjfee.com, retrievable at any time for as long as you need it. To print, you need three things that match your record: the SEVIS ID, the family name and the date of birth. Nothing else is required, and there is no expiry on the ability to reprint — so the practical advice is mundane and important: download the PDF when you pay, store it in cloud storage and in your documents folder, and print a paper copy to carry to the interview. Students routinely arrive at the consulate unable to access the email account they used three months earlier, or unable to recall which SEVIS ID they paid against.

Check the confirmation against your current I-20 or DS-2019 the moment you print it. The SEVIS ID on the payment confirmation must always match the SEVIS ID on your most current form, with the narrow exception of border commuter students. If you have been issued a new initial I-20 — because you changed schools, restarted a record, or corrected a status issue — and the number differs, the receipt in your hand no longer proves payment for the record you are presenting, and the consular officer will see exactly that. Bring the confirmation to the interview regardless of what the officer already has access to; the electronic record is what they query, the paper is what keeps the appointment moving.

Transfers and Corrections

When the SEVIS ID on your receipt does not match your current I-20 or DS-2019, the answer is a fee transfer, not a second payment. You request it from fmjfee.com directly, or by emailing fmjfee.sevis@ice.dhs.gov with a detailed description of the correction needed. The same route handles misspelled names, date-of-birth errors and switching to a different school. The government's own advice on timing is explicit: because of the volume of transfer and change requests, email a minimum of two weeks before your visa interview so there is time to complete the change. If nothing has been resolved within two weeks, contact the SEVP Response Center on 703-603-3400.

Transfers are also the correct answer in the common denial scenario. If you paid, were refused a visa, and are reapplying within 12 months of the original payment date for the same type of program, you do not pay again — but if the new application carries a different SEVIS ID, a transfer is required to move the payment across. Keep the original confirmation for this reason alone. The same logic governs students whose school issues a fresh initial I-20 after a lapse: request the transfer, do not simply pay a second time, and if you are unsure whether a new payment is required, email fmjfee.sevis@ice.dhs.gov and ask rather than guessing, because the money is not coming back either way.

Refunds, Denials and Reapplication

State the rule plainly: the I-901 fee will not be refunded. The Form I-901 instructions say fees will not be refunded, bulk filer payments are non-refundable, and DHS does not return the money if your visa is refused or if you simply decide not to travel. That is the ordinary and expected outcome for a large share of payments — it is not evidence that anything went wrong with your application. What protects you instead is the 12-month reuse window: if you paid the fee, were denied a visa, and reapply within 12 months of the original payment date for the same kind of F, M or J program, you do not have to pay again, subject to the transfer requirement if the SEVIS ID has changed.

There are a few genuinely refundable situations, all narrow: payment taken in error for someone who was never required to pay, or administrative error on the government's side. Do not build a plan around them. What you should build instead is a checking habit: confirm you are paying the right amount for the right classification against the current regulation, confirm you are not already covered by a school or sponsor bulk payment, confirm your SEVIS ID before submitting, and print the receipt. Equally important is understanding the consequence of not paying at all — the Department of State will refuse the visa, and if you are already in the United States, an application filed without the fee will simply not be processed. Beyond that, the fee is a rounding error next to tuition; treat it as a compliance checkpoint rather than a cost centre, and spend your attention on the documents that actually decide outcomes.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The recurring failures are depressingly consistent. Paying against the wrong SEVIS ID heads the list: a stale receipt from a previous school or an earlier record that no longer corresponds to the I-20 you will present. Paying too late is second — not allowing the three business days for verification, or leaving payment until the last morning and then hitting a card decline with no backup. Using the wrong site follows, either a lookalike domain or a well-meaning agent's portal that charges a service fee on top and does not actually file the I-901. Then confusing the institutional fee with the government fee: a school invoices you a "SEVIS fee", you believe you are done, and the consulate finds no payment on the record.

Further down: assuming dependents owe money and paying for F-2, M-2 or J-2 family members who are exempt; paying twice after a record change when a transfer would have done; travelling without the printed confirmation; and filing a change of status or reinstatement in the United States without paying first, which stops the application before it starts. Each of these is avoidable with one habit — after every payment, print the confirmation, compare the SEVIS ID against your current I-20 or DS-2019 character by character, and file the PDF alongside your documents. If a status problem has already developed, our F-1 reinstatement guide and change of status requirements cover what comes next.

Fee Amounts at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

How We Fact-Check This Page