The SEVIS I-901 Fee: How Much It Costs and When to Pay It

The fee and who owes it

The I-901 SEVIS fee for F-1 and F-3 students is 350 dollars, set out in 8 CFR 214.13 . M-1 vocational students, including flight school applicants, pay the same 350 dollars. Most J-1 exchange visitors pay 220 dollars, while J-1 au pairs, camp counselors and summer work travel participants pay 35 dollars. DHS raised the F and M figure to 350 dollars from 200 dollars in a rule effective June 24, 2019, per the Federal Register notice , and it has stayed at that level since. The fee is separate from your school's application fee, tuition deposit, or any other program cost.

Why Canadians pay at a different moment

Most international students pay the SEVIS fee before their visa interview, since 8 CFR 214.13 requires DHS confirmation of payment before a consular officer issues the visa stamp. You skip that interview entirely: F status is granted at the US port of entry rather than through a consulate, so the same regulation shifts your payment deadline to before you apply for admission at the border. In practice, pay before you board your flight or drive across, not once a Customs and Border Protection officer already has your documents in hand.

This is where Canadian students confuse the SEVIS fee with a visa application fee. Other international students pay both a consular visa application fee to the State Department and the SEVIS fee to DHS. Since you do not go through a consular interview, you never owe a consular fee at all, only the 350-dollar SEVIS fee.

How to pay

• Find your SEVIS ID number on your Form I-20, top right corner.

• Pay through the DHS I-901 payment system at fmjfee.com, by credit card or another accepted method.

• Wait roughly 3 business days after paying before printing your receipt, so the payment registers in SEVIS first.

• Carry the printed confirmation together with your I-20 when you travel.

When you do not pay again

You pay once for your current SEVIS record, when your school first issues your I-20. Transferring between schools on the same SEVIS ID, extending your program end date on your existing I-20, or applying for post-completion Optional Practical Training does not trigger a new fee. Your F-2 dependents also do not owe a separate fee if you already paid for your own F-1 status.

When you do pay again

If your SEVIS record is terminated, for example after more than 5 months outside the US without an approved reason or after an unapproved leave of absence, your school issues a new initial I-20 with a new SEVIS ID rather than reactivating the old one. A new SEVIS ID means a new 350-dollar fee, even though you return to the same program. Reactivating an existing record, where your school's international office requests reinstatement instead of a fresh I-20, avoids the second fee, but reactivation typically takes 2 to 3 weeks to process and is not guaranteed. Ask your designated school official which path applies before you assume your original payment still covers you.

The same rule catches a dependent who later enrolls as a student in their own right. An F-2 dependent who changes to F-1 status to start their own program gets a new SEVIS ID as the principal applicant and owes the 350-dollar fee independently, even though the family already paid it once for the original F-1 student.

What the fee does not replace

Paying the SEVIS fee does not replace the other documents you carry to the border. You still need an unexpired I-20 with your designated school official's travel signature from within the last year, since a stale signature raises questions at inspection. You still need evidence covering the program costs your I-20 states your school confirmed you meet. You still need to show your intent to return to Canada after your program, since F-1 status depends on nonimmigrant intent, something the SEVIS payment record does not address at all. The 350-dollar fee only confirms your record exists and is funded, not that every other entry requirement is satisfied.

There is no fee waiver for F-1 or F-3 students based on financial need or scholarship funding. Every F and M student pays the same 350 dollars regardless of whether a Canadian province, a home institution or a US school is covering the rest of your costs.

A worked example

Say your program starts September 2, 2026. Your school issues your I-20 on June 10, 2026, tied to a specific SEVIS ID. You pay the 350-dollar fee at fmjfee.com by August 20, 2026, then wait 3 business days before printing your receipt, giving the payment time to register in the system. You plan to drive across the border on August 25, 2026. At the crossing, you present your passport, your I-20 and your printed I-901 receipt. The CBP officer confirms your SEVIS record shows the fee paid, then admits you in F-1 status for the length of your program, recorded as Duration of Status rather than a fixed end date stamped in your passport.

What happens if you skip it or get the timing wrong

Confirming your SEVIS fee payment is part of how a CBP officer decides whether to admit you in F-1 status at the border. An unpaid fee, or a payment logged under the wrong SEVIS ID because of a typo, is a paperwork gap the officer cannot resolve on the spot, and it delays your admission or sends you to secondary inspection while the record gets sorted out. Pay with enough lead time before travel, check that the SEVIS ID on your payment confirmation matches the one on your I-20 exactly, and treat payment as a required step before you travel, not something to settle after you land.