The U.S. Department of State published a final rule in the Federal Register on August 3, 2026 establishing a permanent visa bond program for certain B-1/B-2 visitor visa applicants. The rule finalizes a temporary program that took effect on August 20, 2025 as a 12-month pilot, and it raises the amounts consular officers may require.
Under the permanent program, consular officers may require an applicant from a designated country to post a bond of $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000, set according to the applicant’s individual circumstances. Those tiers are an increase over the pilot, which used $5,000, $10,000, and $15,000. The State Department frames the program as a compliance tool intended to reduce nonimmigrant visa overstays while providing a structured mechanism for posting, processing, and discharging the bonds.
The program currently applies to roughly 50 countries, many of them in Africa, and the department has indicated the country list will change on a rolling basis. That rolling designation is an important detail for planning: a country not covered today can be added, and applicants should confirm the current list before assuming a bond will not be required.
The bond conditions cut both ways. A bond may be forfeited if the visa holder violates its terms — including by overstaying, or by seeking asylum or other humanitarian protection while in the United States. Conversely, a visa holder who complies with the terms of their status receives a full refund, provided they either depart on time or timely and properly file an extension of stay or change of status request. That refund structure means the bond functions as a deposit against non-compliance rather than a fee, though the cash-flow burden of fronting $10,000 to $20,000 is real for many applicants.
For families in the United States on employment-based or family-based tracks, the most common point of contact will be visiting relatives. A parent or sibling from a designated country applying for a B-1/B-2 visa may now face a bond requirement on top of the standard $185 machine-readable visa fee. Because the bond is set case by case at the consular officer’s discretion, applicants cannot budget for a fixed amount in advance — only for the possibility that one will be imposed at the upper end of the range.
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Source: Federal Register — 22 CFR Part 41, Visas: Visa Bond Program (2026-15726)