USCIS Resumes Premium Processing for H-1B petitions

03 / 11 / 2019

On March 11, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that as of March 12, 2019, it has resumed premium processing for all H-1B petitions. Premium processing allows petitioners to request 15-day processing by USCIS for an additional government filing fee. USCIS must take action on the petition within 15 days or refund the filing fee. Employers may request premium processing with the initial filing of an H-1B petition, including H-1B extensions or H-1B change of employer (“transfer”) petitions, or may request an “upgrade” to premium processing at a later date after an H-1B petition has been filed.

If a Request for Evidence (RFE) was issued for a pending H-1B petition, the response to the RFE should be included in the request to upgrade to premium processing.

USCIS instructs that if an H-1B petition was transferred to a different service center from where it was originally sent, the premium processing request along with the transfer notice should be sent to the service center to which the case was transferred.