Data · Verified 6 September 2026
Your US visitor visa now costs up to $20,000 up front.
You get it back. That is the important part, and it is the part that gets lost when people first hear the number. But it has to be paid before the visa is issued, it is set by an officer you meet for a few minutes, and there is a condition attached that catches people long after the visa is in the passport.
If you are applying from Nigeria or one of around fifty other countries, this now applies to you.
What changed, and when
The US State Department ran a twelve-month visa bond pilot from August 2025. Most coverage you will find online describes that pilot, says it was due to end on 5 August 2026, and leaves the impression that it was a temporary experiment worth waiting out.
It was not. On 3 August 2026the State Department published a final rule making the programme permanent, effective immediately — and raised the amounts at the same time.
Under the pilot
$5,000 · $10,000 · $15,000
Now, permanently
$10,000 · $15,000 · $20,000
The rule also lets the Department add countries to the list on fifteen days’ notice, and remove them with immediate effect. So the list is not fixed, and anyone planning a trip several months out should check where their country stands rather than assume.
How much, and who decides
There is no published formula. The amount is chosen by the consular officer at your interview, based on how they assess the risk that you will overstay. Fifteen thousand dollars is the expected default.
Two things follow from that, and both matter for planning.
The first is that you cannot know the figure in advance, so a trip has to be budgeted against the upper end rather than the lower one. The second is subtler and more important: the same evidence that determines whether you are approved also determines what you are charged. A file that reads as a clear, short, well-evidenced visit is not just more likely to succeed — it is arguing, in the same breath, for the smaller number.
The nine airports
This is the condition almost nobody hears about until it is too late, and it is the one that turns an approved visa into a ruined trip.
Travellers admitted on a bonded visa must enter and leave the United States through one of nine designated ports. Not the airport nearest your family. Not the one with the cheapest fare. One of these:
Book a flight into Houston, Miami, Dallas or San Francisco on a bonded visa and the problem surfaces at check-in, or worse, on arrival. The visa is valid. The routing is not. This is a booking decision, made weeks after the visa was issued, by someone who was never told the condition existed.
How you get it back — and how you lose it
The bond is genuinely refundable. It is not a fee and it is not revenue for anybody. It is a deposit against your leaving when you said you would.
Leave on time and it comes back in full
Depart within the period you were admitted for and the bond is returned. This is what happens in the overwhelming majority of cases.
A properly filed extension also protects it
Filing on time to extend or change status does not forfeit the bond. If that application is refused, there is a short departure window that keeps it safe — leave inside it.
Overstaying forfeits it
Remaining past your admitted date is the central thing the bond exists to discourage, and the money is simply gone.
Claiming asylum forfeits it
Filing for asylum or humanitarian protection while in the United States triggers forfeiture. Anyone entering on a bonded visitor visa with that in mind should understand it costs the bond.
The practical problem is not really the risk of losing it. It is that the money is unavailable for the length of the trip and the processing behind it. For most families that is the actual barrier, and it is worth being honest about: the bond does not make the visa harder to get. It makes it harder to afford.
Who is on the list
Roughly fifty countries, a large share of them African. Nigeria was added in January 2026. These are the African countries named on the programme:
Ghana, Kenya and South Africa are not on the list as it stands. That can change on fifteen days’ notice, so check before booking rather than relying on this page months from now.
Students may be next
The programme currently covers B-1 and B-2 visitor visas only. But the State Department has the authority to require bonds from student applicants too, and chose not to use it at the outset rather than because it could not.
A separate rule ending open-ended admission for F-1 students takes effect on 15 September 2026. Immigration practitioners expect student applicants from the listed countries to be brought into the bond programme after it. Nothing is confirmed, and we will not state it as though it were — but any family planning US study from an affected country should be aware the possibility exists.
What to do about it
Budget against $20,000, not $10,000
You will not know the figure until the interview. Planning around the default or the floor is how a trip collapses after the visa is approved.
Book the routing after the visa, not before
Cheap fares tempt people into booking early. On a bonded visa the routing is constrained, so the ticket is the last decision, not the first.
Make the file argue for the lower band
The same evidence that wins the visa influences the amount. Clear dates, a finite trip, real ties at home, no contradictions.
Know the departure rules before you land
Leaving on time returns the money. Everything that forfeits it is avoidable and known in advance.
Check the list close to travel
Countries can be added on fifteen days’ notice. What was true when you started planning may not be true when you apply.
Sources: US Department of State final rule making the visa bond programme permanent, published 3 August 2026; earlier temporary final rule establishing the pilot, August 2025. This page describes published rules and is not legal advice. The country list and amounts can change; verify before you book.
The bond is set by how your file reads.
We build the application to answer the return question plainly — and tell you what to expect before you sit down at the window.
Continue Reading
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Reading a Refusal Notice
What the wording actually means, and what to do next.