Category: Visas

The Provost and the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel and Faculty (APF) have announced a pilot program to expand UW visa sponsorship of outstanding international faculty.  Effective September 1, 2025, the International Scholars Operations (ISO) team will work with the UW Attorney General’s Office and outside immigration counsel to support requests for O-1 (Extraordinary Ability), EB-1B (Outstanding Researcher/Professor), and H-1B Conrad waiver sponsorship for new or ongoing faculty. While some of these cases will be prepared by outside counsel with minimal involvement by ISO, units may still choose to request sponsorship through ISO, as ISO workload allows.

This pilot program reflects long-standing requests from around campus for more support for these visa types. Units should note that they will still be responsible for related fees, and that outside counsel generally bill more for these case types than ISO does. More guidance on these visa types and processes (including how processing through ISO and outside counsel will differ) will be published on the ISO website shortly.

ISO anticipates that this program will significantly alleviate hiring and retention difficulties for outstanding international faculty, and we’re excited to better meet this need. Please send any questions or feedback you have about this pilot program to acadvisa@uw.edu.

Effective August 1, 2025, the following visa-related fee changes will apply:

•       Visa request fees for J-1s, H-1Bs, TNs, and E-3s will decrease to $519 (from $580)
•       Amendment fees for J-1 documents (DS-2019s) will decrease to $99 (from $107)
•       O-1 and EB-1B hourly visa case management fees will decrease to $102 (from $117) 

Visa requests that are conditionally approved on or after August 1, 2025 will be charged at the new rate. These decreases will appear on invoices issued on or after August 2.

Please note that all fees associated with H-1B, E-3, TN, and O-1/EB-1B petitions, including the $519 visa request fee, are paid by the host department and cannot be passed on to the international scholar.

For J-1 scholars who are not members of the UAW Postdoctoral Scholars Local 4121, as well as all J-2 dependents, reimbursement may be requested by the department from scholars for the $519 visa request fee and $99 J-1 amendment fee. The UAW 4121 2023-25 contract prevents units from requesting reimbursement for J-1 visa fees from postdoctoral scholars.

These fees will apply through June 30, 2026; units should expect that fees will change again effective on or after July 1, 2026. For more information on visa processing fees and U.S. government visa fees, see the Visa Fees page. Please contact ISO with questions you have regarding this announcement.

On Monday, July 28th, APF will update our visa request tool. No downtime is expected for this update. You may notice the following changes:

• Enhanced navigation menus
• Clearer prompts for prior immigration statuses
• A new question to capture upcoming international travel plans
• Reduced blank space on conditional approval PDFs

Updated visa intake forms are now available for use in gathering information for the visa request forms:

• H Visa Intake Form
• J Visa Intake Form

Please use these updated intake forms for any visa requests you submit on or after July 28th. Contact acadvisa@uw.edu with any questions you have about this announcement.