The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a proposed rule that would impose very steep increases to some of its filing fees, including for O and P artist visas applications filed by U.S. petitioners.

Filing fees for regularly processed O visa petitions would increase by 260% from $460 to $1,655 per petition.

Filing fees for regularly processed P visa petitions would increase by 251% from $460 to $1,615 per petition.

The total number of individuals on one form (one fee), including O-2 support personnel and P entertainment groups would be capped at 25. This would require numerous petitions for larger ensembles. For example, a visiting orchestra comprising 110 musicians, plus a handful of accompanying support staff would require 6 visa petitions rather than 2.

The Premium Processing Service (already unaffordable to most organizations at a current cost of $2,500) would take longer with USCIS redefining the timeframe from 15 calendar days to 15 business days (federal working days) in order to complete processing.

It has always been challenging to qualify for U.S. artist visas as a touring musician or band, but these fee increases could put U.S. tours out for reach for many artists.

Conversely, it may seem that artists on labels and agencies with strong U.S. fan bases are largely unaffected because the tour agencies would budget accordingly, raising the prices of tickets and merch when planning tours and the fans support their favorite artists as usual, however, while the artists may not be affected, the artists’ fanbase will be affected by the changes in the first instance and generally speaking the U.S. entertainment industry as a whole will also be affected.