Attorney fee, USCIS fees and third-party costs are three different things. Flat vs hourly, what is excluded, and seven questions to ask — (305) 315-3425.
Reviewed by Ekaterina Fitenko, Esq. — Florida Bar #1064536. With 20+ years of experience in the legal field (Florida Bar licensed since 2025), she works with families and businesses across Florida on flat-fee immigration matters, in English and Russian.
Search for the cost of an immigration lawyer and you will mostly find ranges so wide they tell you nothing. There is a real reason for that, and a bad one.
The real one: the same form can be a simple filing or a complex one depending on facts that only surface in conversation. A marriage petition where both spouses have clean histories and years of joint documents is not the same matter as one with a prior removal order, an overstay, or almost no paper trail — though both file the same forms. The same Form I-130 can describe fifteen hours of work or ninety.
The bad one: opacity is commercially convenient. A client who cannot compare prices is easier to convert, and a fee never stated in writing is easier to increase later.
The honest position sits between. The exact number requires knowing your facts, but the structure of the fee, what it covers, and what could change it can and should be explained before you pay anything. A firm that cannot explain its structure at the first meeting is telling you something about itself.
An immigration case has three price tags, and almost every misunderstanding about cost comes from treating them as one.
1. The attorney's fee. Strategy, preparing and assembling the petition, responding to what USCIS sends back, interview preparation, and responsibility for the filing.
2. Government filing fees. Paid to USCIS or the Department of State, not to the firm, set by regulation, and identical whether you hire a lawyer or file yourself. Our guides to the 2026 USCIS fee schedule and premium processing carry current figures — though the government's own page is the authority.
3. Third-party costs. Medical examinations, certified translations, document retrieval from abroad, apostilles, passport photos, courier and postage. Individually small, collectively not, and almost never inside an attorney fee.
Only the first is negotiable, and only the first differs between firms: the USCIS fee for a given form is the same in every office in Florida, and no attorney can reduce it. So "$3,000 all in" at one office and "$3,000 plus government fees" at another are two different prices, and the gap can be four figures. Someone who says a case "cost twelve thousand dollars" is usually adding all three; a firm quoting a fee is normally quoting only the first. Establish which you are being told before comparing anything.
Most family-based immigration work in the United States is billed as a flat fee per matter or per stage — better for most clients not because it is cheaper on average, but because it moves the risk of a case taking longer than expected from the client to the firm.
A flat fee is one agreed amount for a defined scope: Form I-130 filed together with Form I-485, Form I-765 and Form I-131 for one spouse, plus the interview. You know the number before work begins, and if the packet needs three rounds of document collection instead of one, the fee does not move. The trade-off: the scope must be defined precisely, because anything outside it is a new fee.
Hourly billing charges recorded time at a stated rate, usually in tenths of an hour, so the total is unknown until the matter ends. It is normal where nobody can scope the work in advance: removal defense with an unknown number of hearings, a federal court action, a business matter where documents arrive over months — and there an honest hourly rate beats a flat fee padded against uncertainty. If you are quoted hourly for a straightforward marriage case, ask why, and ask for an estimated total and a cap in writing: a rate with no ceiling is a price you learn only when the case is over.
Employment cases often split the fee by stage: the Form I-140 petition is one fee and the later Form I-485 adjustment another, each payable when that stage begins. Not a trick — the second stage may be years away and may never happen if priority dates move badly.
What should make you cautious is a flat fee with vague scope. "Handling your green card" can mean the initial petition only, or everything through the interview — a difference of thousands of dollars that surfaces at the worst possible moment, when a request for evidence arrives.
Read the scope paragraph of the fee agreement before the number: the scope is what you are buying. Typically inside a properly scoped flat fee for a family or employment petition:
Commonly outside it — each can become its own bill:
Ask directly: "If USCIS sends an RFE, what does that cost me?" All three answers are defensible; not knowing which applies to you is not. A firm that has thought about its pricing answers in one sentence — get that answer into the agreement. Our guide to RFEs shows why these responses take real work.
The filing fee is paid to the government to have your form accepted and adjudicated, and it is set by regulation, not by any law firm. It is charged per form, not per case, so an adjustment package containing Form I-130, Form I-485 and Form I-765 carries more than one fee line even though it travels in one envelope.
Do not take a fee amount from a blog post, including this one. USCIS publishes the current schedule on Form G-1055 and on its filing fees page, the amounts have changed more than once in recent years, and a form submitted with the wrong fee is rejected and mailed back. Confirm the figure on the day you file.
Three features catch people out. They are generally not refundable — on a denial USCIS keeps the fee for having adjudicated the case. Some applicants qualify for a waiver on Form I-912, available only for certain benefit types and requiring proof of household income, a means-tested benefit, or financial hardship. And consular cases run through the Department of State, which charges its own immigrant visa processing fee and Affidavit of Support review fee on the DS-260 track, plus a separate USCIS Immigrant Fee for producing the green card after the visa is issued.
Premium processing is a fourth line and optional. Requested on Form I-907 and available only for designated form types such as Form I-129 and Form I-140, it buys a faster agency response, not a favorable one. It is a government fee, not a legal fee — though urgency does change how a firm sequences work around it.
Third-party costs go to clinics, translators and record offices; neither your lawyer nor USCIS sets them. They are the smallest of the three bills and the one people forget to budget for entirely.
The medical examination on Form I-693 must be performed by a physician designated by USCIS as a civil surgeon, and the clinic sets the price. Two things move it: whether the quote includes the vaccinations required under the immigration rules, and whether you can produce your childhood vaccination record — without it you may pay for a full vaccine series or for blood titers proving existing immunity. Ask for the price with vaccines included before you book; the difference between clinics in Broward County is real.
Certified translation is required for every document not in English. Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) it must be complete and accompanied by the translator's certification that it is accurate and that the translator is competent to translate; notarization of the signature is not required by that regulation, certification is. Translators price per page or per word, and a Ukrainian or Russian birth certificate, a marriage certificate and a divorce decree are three separate documents. Our guide to certified translations sets out what the certification must say.
An apostille is not a translation, though the two are constantly confused. It is a certificate under the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 authenticating a public document for use abroad, issued by the authority in the country that created the document — not by a Florida notary and not by us. Documents issued in Florida get it from the Florida Department of State. Build that time in: a foreign apostille takes weeks and cannot be hurried by paying a lawyer more.
The rest is small and adds up: certified copies of court dispositions, police clearance certificates, document retrieval from abroad, passport photographs, certified mail with tracking, courier and postage, and USCIS online account fees where applicable. Ask whether these are billed at cost or included.
Two quotes for "a marriage green card" can differ by a factor of three, and the reason is usually your history rather than the firms.
Unlawful presence and prior overstay. A spouse of a United States citizen who entered lawfully and overstayed can generally still adjust status inside the country. Someone who entered without inspection is in a different position, may need a provisional waiver on Form I-601A and consular processing abroad — a second matter with its own fee. Length matters: unlawful presence of more than 180 days, or of one year, triggers bars on re-entry.
Criminal history, including charges that were dropped. An arrest that ended without conviction still has to be documented with a certified disposition, and the immigration analysis of a plea is not the one a criminal defense lawyer did at the time. One old misdemeanor adds a full stage: obtaining the record, deciding whether it is a crime involving moral turpitude, and whether a waiver is needed.
A prior filing that went wrong. A denied petition, an abandoned application, a prior removal order, or a form filed with an error is the most expensive thing a client brings to a first meeting: the new filing has to explain the old one, and USCIS has the old file. Cases previously filed by the client or by a non-lawyer preparer routinely cost more than cases with no history at all — and occasionally the earlier mistake cannot be undone.
Any prior claim to United States citizenship, or a voter registration. The consequences reach well beyond the fee, and this must be raised at the consultation, not discovered at the interview.
Thin documentary evidence. A marriage with almost no joint records, or an extraordinary-ability case where the record must be assembled and explained rather than attached, takes far more work than a well-documented file — as does a household with income documents from three countries.
Urgency and family size. An already-scheduled interview, a detained relative or an expiring status compresses the same work into less time, and derivative spouses and children add filings and documents.
Note what is not on this list: how much you can afford, and how badly you need the outcome. A fee that moves with either is not a fee, it is pricing by desperation. And a price quoted over the phone before anyone has seen your documents is a guess that will be revised.
Florida attorneys work under written engagement agreements, and fees here are governed by Rule 4-1.5 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar. The agreement, not the conversation, governs your matter. Before signing, confirm you can point to:
You are entitled to read it before you pay anything, and an agreement you cannot follow without a lawyer explaining it is a warning in itself.
A guarantee of approval. No one can guarantee a government decision, and Florida Bar advertising rules forbid predicting the outcome of a case. A guarantee is a marketing claim, often from someone who is not a lawyer at all.
No written agreement. A fee agreed only verbally protects one side, and it is not yours.
Pressure to decide today. Immigration deadlines are real; a discount expiring this afternoon is not one of them.
Cash only, or payment to an individual rather than to the firm.
Vagueness about who does the work. If the attorney you meet will not be handling your file, that is worth knowing before you sign.
A price far below the market. The lowest quote in your search results frequently comes from someone who is not a lawyer. In Florida a non-attorney may not give legal advice or select forms for you, and the words "notario" or immigration consultant do not change that. In much of Latin America and Eastern Europe a notary is a qualified legal professional; in the United States a notary public witnesses signatures, and that mistranslation is the most expensive misunderstanding in immigration.
The damage is not the money paid. It is a form signed under penalty of perjury containing an answer the client did not understand, filed with the federal government, in a file that follows them for life. A misrepresentation on an application can trigger a permanent inadmissibility finding, and repairing a filing is frequently harder than the original case would have been to file correctly.
The second pattern is a real attorney with an unrealistically low number and a narrow scope: the fee covers preparing the forms and nothing else, and every step after that — the RFE, the interview, the second interview, a change of address — arrives as a new invoice. The total is not lower, only disclosed later. A Florida Bar number can be verified in seconds before you pay anyone.
Ask these of every office you consider, including ours, and put the answers side by side. They are worth more than a comparison of headline numbers.
Any firm worth hiring will answer all ten without hesitation. Two answers should end the conversation instead: a promise of a result, and a refusal to put the fee in writing.
Our initial strategy session is $200 for 30 minutes, paid before the meeting and credited toward your retainer if you engage the firm. It runs in English or Russian, by phone, by video, or at our office at 11555 Heron Bay Blvd, Suite 277, Coral Springs, FL 33076.
We state this plainly because the alternative is worse for you. A consultation offered at no charge is a sales meeting: its purpose is to sign you, and the incentive is to be encouraging rather than accurate. A paid session is a working meeting. In 30 minutes we go through your entries and departures, your current status, prior filings and any arrests, and you leave with an assessment of which route applies and what it will cost, including the government fees and third-party costs that are not ours. That includes the times when the honest answer is that you have no case yet, that a different category fits, or that you do not need a lawyer for this. Clients who then file on their own are not talked out of it.
Arrive prepared: passports and prior USCIS notices, any court paperwork, and — most valuable of all — the dates of every entry to and departure from the United States. Those dates drive more of the analysis than anything else. Our client intake form collects them in advance so the thirty minutes go to your case; our fee FAQ and the processing-time page are worth reading before the call.
We quote a flat fee for family-based and most humanitarian filings, and the engagement agreement states the scope and the payment schedule in writing before any money is due. Where hourly is appropriate we say so and explain why. We do not quote before hearing your history, because such a number would have to be revised — and a revised fee is how clients end up feeling misled by an office that was merely fast. A published fee schedule for individual matters is in preparation and will appear on this page; until then we quote in writing after the consultation.
To start, call (305) 315-3425 or email fitenkolaw@gmail.com. Our second office at 600 Three Islands Boulevard, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 receives clients by prior appointment only.
There is no single honest number: the same form is simple or complex depending on prior overstays, criminal history, thin documentation, or an earlier filing that went wrong. Attorneys quote a flat fee per stage or an hourly rate. Ask any office for three separate figures — the attorney's fee, the government filing fees, and third-party costs such as the medical examination and translations — because one "all in" number that does not break out those three cannot be compared to anything.
For most petition-based work, yes. A flat fee is one agreed amount for a defined scope and does not change if the work takes longer, which moves that risk from you to the firm; an hourly rate charges recorded time, usually in tenths of an hour, so the total is unknown until the matter ends. Removal defense and federal litigation are normally hourly, because nobody can predict the number of hearings. If you are quoted hourly for a routine filing, ask for a written estimate and a cap. Be most cautious about a flat fee with vague scope.
Usually not, and that is standard — but ask. Government fees are paid to USCIS or the Department of State per form, are set by regulation rather than by the firm, and no attorney can lower them. Third-party costs — medical examinations, certified translations, document retrieval, apostilles — are normally separate too. Current amounts appear on Form G-1055 and on the USCIS filing fees page; check them on the day you file, because a form submitted with the wrong fee is rejected and returned.
It depends on the firm, and all the common approaches are defensible: included, charged separately, or a first response included. What matters is knowing which applies to you before you sign, and that it appears in the written agreement. Ask the same about a Notice of Intent to Deny and a denial — a motion on Form I-290B or an appeal is normally a new matter with its own fee and its own government filing fee.
Because the same form number can mean very different amounts of work, and the quotes may cover different things. A prior overstay or an entry without inspection, any arrest even without a conviction, a previously denied or abandoned filing, and an approaching deadline each add stages; one quote may include a request-for-evidence response and the interview while the other does not. If one number sits far below the rest, it is usually a scope that will expand once work begins, or a person who is not an attorney at all — in Florida, notarios and immigration consultants may not give legal advice, and their filings are frequently harder to repair than the original case would have been to file correctly.
Government filing fees are generally not refundable, because USCIS charges them for adjudicating the case rather than approving it. Attorney's fees depend on your written fee agreement, which should say how unearned money is held and when any part is returned. No lawyer may promise you an outcome — Florida Bar advertising rules forbid predicting results, so a guarantee of approval is itself a warning sign.
Not necessarily. Many firms, including ours, split payment across the stages of the case, and the schedule belongs in the written fee agreement before any money changes hands. Government filing fees work differently: due in full when the form is filed, not payable in installments, though some applicants qualify to request a waiver on Form I-912 based on household income, a means-tested benefit, or financial hardship.
$200 for 30 minutes, in English or Russian, paid before the meeting and credited toward your retainer if you engage the firm. We do not offer a no-charge consultation, and that is deliberate: a sales meeting has an incentive to be encouraging, while a paid working meeting lets us tell you that you have no case yet, or that a different category fits. Call (305) 315-3425 or email fitenkolaw@gmail.com. Bring passports, prior USCIS notices, any court paperwork, and the dates of every entry to and departure from the United States; our client intake form completed in advance means the full thirty minutes goes to your case.
This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. It does not state fees for any particular matter. Government filing fees change; confirm current amounts with the USCIS fee schedule rather than from any third-party page, and see The Florida Bar to verify that anyone you are considering hiring is a licensed attorney.
Fitenko Law PLLC, 11555 Heron Bay Blvd, Suite 277, Coral Springs, FL 33076 (main office); 600 Three Islands Boulevard, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009 (by appointment only). Phone: (305) 315-3425. Email: fitenkolaw@gmail.com