Sponsors (2)
Official title: To authorize amounts collected in certain visa fees to be made available to reduce visa wait times, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 13, 2026 by Alice Costandina Titus · Last progress August 13, 2026
The bill aims to speed visa processing and stabilize consular services by using fee surcharges and balances for operations, but does so by shifting costs onto users, reducing appropriations oversight, and risking diversion of funds from fraud-detection efforts that protect visa integrity.
Nonimmigrant visa applicants and international travelers will likely see shorter wait times because the bill sets a goal that 80% of nonimmigrant visa applicants be interviewed within three weeks, which could speed travel, business, and family reunification.
Immigrants, passport applicants, and U.S. citizens abroad benefit from steadier consular operations since the State Department may use specified surcharges and fee balances to fund passport, visa, and citizen-protection services, helping sustain staffing and service continuity.
Immigration applicants and passport/visa applicants may face higher or sustained user costs because making surcharges and fee balances routinely available for consular operations effectively shifts more program costs onto fee-payers.
Fraud detection and visa-integrity efforts could be weakened because allowing the Fraud Prevention and Detection Account to fund broader consular services risks diverting resources away from targeted fraud-prevention activities that protect national security.
Taxpayers and congressional oversight may be diminished because relying more on fee transfers to cover consular needs reduces pressure for direct appropriations and can limit Congress's regular budgetary leverage and transparency over consular programs.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows the State Department to use certain visa/passport surcharges and fee balances for consular services, permit fee-account transfers into consular accounts, and sets an 80%/3-week interview goal for nonimmigrant visas.
Amends rules on how the State Department may use passport and visa surcharges and certain fee balances to cover general consular services and consular protection of U.S. citizens overseas. It permits transfers of unobligated fee balances into the Consular and Border Security Programs account with reporting requirements for certain transfers, and sets a nonbinding goal that 80% of nonimmigrant visa applicants be interviewed within three weeks of application receipt, subject to resource, security, and citizen-service exceptions. The change clarifies language about costs covered, removes an existing paragraph, updates cross-references, and authorizes use of specific surcharge and fraud-prevention fee sources to support consular operations and border-security related consular work.