How to Move to USA in 2027: Visas, Process & Costs

Every year, millions of people type some version of the same question into a search bar: how do I actually move to the United States? The honest answer is that there's no single door. There are dozens of visa categories, each with its own rules, fees, waiting times and ways to go wrong. Some people arrive as students and stay for good. Some get a job offer and a work visa first. Others marry a citizen, get sponsored by a relative or sit in a green card queue for ten years or more. This post covers the main routes for 2027, walks through the process from the first form to your first week in the country, and puts real numbers on the cost. One warning before we start: US immigration rules changed more in the last twelve months than in the several years before that, so treat every figure here as a starting point and check the official source before you pay anyone.

What Changed Recently, and What Might Change Again

This post reflects rules and fees published as of September 2026. A few changes matter a lot for anyone planning a 2027 move, and several are still being fought in court.

• The $100,000 H-1B payment. A presidential proclamation in September 2025 added a $100,000 payment for certain new H-1B petitions, mainly those for workers who are outside the US and need to enter on that petition. A federal judge in Massachusetts struck down the guidance implementing it in June 2026, and the case is on appeal. On September 18, 2026, the White House extended the requirement through September 21, 2027. Whether an employer can be made to pay it at any given moment depends on the courts, so ask before you count on an H-1B from abroad.
• A weighted H-1B lottery. Since the 2026 registration season, selection favors higher-paid jobs instead of being purely random.
• A $250 visa integrity fee. Congress created it in 2025 for most nonimmigrant visas. Rollout has been uneven, and some consulates already collect it.
• Stricter public charge review. A new DHS policy applies to green card applications filed from September 18, 2026, so expect closer questions about your finances.
• Entry restrictions on some countries. Since early 2026, nationals of a few dozen countries face full or partial limits on entry and visas. Check the State Department's current list before spending money.
• Student rules. A rule replacing open-ended student status with fixed end dates was blocked by a federal court on September 14, 2026, the day before it was due to start. It could come back.

The two websites worth bookmarking are uscis.gov and travel.state.gov. If a site ends in anything else and asks you for money, be careful.

Temporary Visa or Green Card? Decide This First

Almost every route falls into one of two groups. Nonimmigrant visas, such as H-1B, F-1, L-1 and O-1, let you live and work or study in the US for a set time and a specific purpose. Immigrant visas and green cards give you permanent residence, so you can live and work almost anywhere in the country and apply for citizenship after five years, or three if you're married to a US citizen and living with them.

Plenty of people use both. A common path is a student visa, then a work visa, then an employer-sponsored green card, and the whole thing can take five to fifteen years. Tourist visas, the B-1 and B-2, are not a way in. You can't work on one, and officers refuse people who look like they plan to stay.

Work Visas: The Most Common Way In

If you have a skill that employers want, a job offer is usually the quickest route. The catch is that most work visas need a US employer to file paperwork for you, so the real first step is finding a company willing to do it.

• H-1B (specialty occupations). For jobs that need a bachelor's degree or higher in a specific field, such as engineering, IT, finance, research or medicine. Only 85,000 new visas are available each year (65,000 regular plus 20,000 for people with a US master's or higher), and registrations far exceed that, so employers enter you in a lottery each March. Under the weighted system, a salary at the top wage level gets you four entries and an entry-level salary gets you one. The employer pays the registration and petition fees. If you're already in the US on a student visa, your employer generally files a change of status from inside the country, and the $100,000 payment was never meant to apply to that case. If you're abroad, it's the opposite.
• L-1 (intracompany transfer). If you've worked for one continuous year in the last three for a company with a US office or affiliate, they can transfer you. L-1A is for managers and executives, and L-1B is for specialized knowledge. There's no lottery and no annual cap.
• O-1 (extraordinary ability). For people with a major record in science, business, arts, athletics or film. It's not only for celebrities. Researchers, founders and senior engineers use it with evidence like awards, press coverage, high pay and published work. There's no lottery.
• Country-specific options. Canadians and Mexicans can use TN status for certain professions under USMCA. Australians can apply for E-3. Citizens of treaty countries can look at the E-2 investor visa if they put substantial capital into a US business they'll run.

One practical note: spouses and children come on dependent visas, and their rights differ. L-2 and E-2 spouses can work, while H-4 spouses only qualify in certain situations.

Student Visas: Study First, Stay Later

The F-1 student visa is popular because it doesn't need an employer, only a place at a US school certified by the government. Once the school issues your Form I-20, you pay the SEVIS fee, complete the DS-160 online form, pay the visa fee and book an interview at a US consulate. Officers want to see that you're a genuine student, that you can pay for the whole program and that you have real ties to your home country.

The money side is where many families get caught. Tuition for international students runs from roughly $20,000 to $60,000 a year, and living costs add another $12,000 to $25,000 depending on the city. You'll need to show funds for at least the first year.

• Working while studying: on-campus jobs up to 20 hours a week during term. Off-campus work is very limited in the first year.
• OPT: after graduating you can work in your field for 12 months, and STEM graduates can extend by another 24 months. This is the bridge many people use to reach the H-1B lottery, often more than once.
• Timing: for a fall 2027 start, applications usually go in during fall 2026 and winter, and visa appointments cluster in May through August. Book early.

Family-Based Immigration

If you have a close relative who is a US citizen or green card holder, they can sponsor you. This is the largest source of green cards each year, and it splits into two lanes with very different waiting times.

• Immediate relatives of US citizens: spouses, unmarried children under 21 and parents of citizens who are 21 or older. There's no annual limit, so the wait is mostly processing time, often between one and two years.
• Preference categories: adult children, married children, siblings of citizens, and spouses and children of green card holders. These have annual caps and country queues. Some wait a few years, and others, especially siblings of citizens from India, Mexico and the Philippines, wait well over a decade.
• Fiancé(e) visa (K-1): a US citizen can petition for a partner they've met in person within the last two years. You must marry within 90 days of arriving, then apply for the green card from inside the US.

The sponsor files Form I-130, and after approval you either apply through a US consulate abroad or, if you're already in the US legally, adjust status through USCIS. The sponsor also signs an Affidavit of Support (Form I-864) showing enough income, generally at least 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline for the household. Marriage cases get real scrutiny, so keep records from the start: shared bills, photos over time, a shared address.

Employment-Based Green Cards

This is the permanent route for skilled workers, and it's separate from the temporary work visas above. Most cases start with the employer proving that no qualified US worker is available, a process called PERM labor certification, followed by Form I-140.

• EB-1: extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers and certain multinational managers. The first group can self-petition.
• EB-2: advanced degrees or exceptional ability. The National Interest Waiver (NIW) lets strong candidates skip both the job offer and PERM.
• EB-3: bachelor's degree jobs, skilled workers and some other workers.

Here's the part people don't hear early enough. Each category has an annual cap, and no single country can take more than 7 percent of the total. For nationals of India and China, that means waits that can stretch past ten years in some categories, while most other nationalities wait far less. Your place in line is your priority date, and the State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin shows when it becomes current. Read it before you commit to a strategy.

Investor Routes: EB-5 and the Gold Card

For people with serious capital, there are two paths. The long-standing one is EB-5, which requires an investment of $800,000 in a targeted employment area (rural or high-unemployment) or $1,050,000 elsewhere, in a business that creates at least 10 full-time jobs. Those minimums are due for an inflation adjustment on January 1, 2027, so check the new figures before you plan around today's numbers.

The newer option is the Trump Gold Card, launched in December 2025. It asks for a $1 million gift to the US government for an individual, or $2 million when a company sponsors an employee, plus a $15,000 processing fee. Unlike EB-5, the money isn't invested in a project and there's no job-creation test, and the program has already been challenged in court. Either way, permanent residents are taxed on worldwide income, so talk to a tax adviser and an immigration lawyer before moving any funds.

The Diversity Visa Lottery

The Diversity Visa program gives out up to 55,000 green cards a year to people from countries with low immigration to the US, and entering is free. The State Department never opened registration for DV-2027, and as of mid-September 2026 it hadn't announced dates for DV-2028. If it does open, use only the official State Department site and ignore any email saying you've "won" or asking for payment. Those are scams.

The Process, Step by Step

The details change by visa, but most cases follow the same basic order.

• Step 1: Choose a route and check your eligibility honestly. Read the requirements on uscis.gov. If you're borderline, pay for a one-hour consultation with an immigration attorney before you spend on filings.
• Step 2: Get the petition or school admission. Your employer files an I-129 for a work visa, your relative files an I-130, your school issues an I-20. Sometimes you file it yourself, as with an EB-1 or NIW.
• Step 3: Wait for approval and a visa number. For temporary visas this takes weeks or months. For capped immigrant categories, you wait until your priority date is current.
• Step 4: Consular paperwork. Nonimmigrant applicants fill in the DS-160. Immigrant applicants fill in the DS-260 and send civil documents to the National Visa Center: passport, birth certificate, marriage or divorce records, police certificates and certified translations.
• Step 5: Medical exam. Immigrant visa applicants see an approved panel physician. Book it only after your consulate tells you to.
• Step 6: The interview. Bring originals of everything and answer short and honestly. Some cases go into administrative processing afterward, which can add weeks or months. In late August 2026 the State Department also paused immigrant visa interview appointments worldwide for officer training, with no end date announced at the time of writing, so ask your consulate what's happening in your case.
• Step 7: Enter the US. An immigrant visa holder pays the USCIS immigrant fee online before travel, then arrives at a port of entry with a sealed packet. The green card usually comes by mail within a few weeks.
• Step 8: Settle in. Apply for a Social Security number, then sort out an address, a bank account, health insurance and a driver's license.

If you're already in the US in valid status, some cases skip the consulate. You file Form I-485 with USCIS and attend an interview at a local office, a process called adjustment of status.

Cost Breakdown: What You'll Actually Pay

Costs fall into three buckets: government fees, other required expenses like medical exams, and everything you'll spend to get settled. The table lists the main government and required costs as published in 2026. Fees are updated regularly, so confirm the exact amount on the official form page before you pay.

To make that concrete, here are three rough scenarios. A spouse of a US citizen applying through a consulate pays about $1,650 in government and medical costs. If the same person applies from inside the US, the government fees alone come to about $3,000 once you add the work permit and travel document, plus the medical exam. An H-1B employee usually pays little in filing fees because the employer covers them, though the visa fee and any integrity fee are yours. An F-1 student pays about $600 to $800 in visa-related fees, and then comes the tuition, which is the real bill.

Lawyers are a separate cost. A straightforward family case might run $2,000 to $4,000 in legal fees, and an employment-based green card commonly costs $5,000 to $12,000 or more, though employers usually pay for those. You can file some cases yourself, but a single mistake can cost months or a refusal, so hire help if your history has anything complicated in it, such as a prior overstay, a criminal record or a previous refusal.

The Costs Nobody Puts on the Government Website

Visa fees are the smaller part of the total for most people. Once you land, the numbers get bigger quickly.

• Flights and shipping: a one-way ticket from Asia or Africa often costs $800 to $1,500 per person, and shipping household goods can cost more than replacing them. Most people bring two suitcases and buy the rest.
• Housing: plan for first month's rent plus a security deposit, often equal to another month. Rents run from $700 to $1,100 in many small towns to $1,500 to $3,500 or more in big cities. Our post on small-town versus big-city life in the US goes through this in detail.
• Health insurance: many work visa holders get it through their employer, and students are usually required to buy a school plan. If you have neither, individual coverage can run a few hundred dollars per person per month, and a single ER visit can cost thousands.
• A cushion: keep three to six months of expenses in savings. Start dates slip, and first paychecks take longer than people expect.

Mistakes That Cost People Years

Most disasters in US immigration are avoidable. These come up again and again.

• Lying or leaving things out. An old overstay, a previous refusal, an arrest or an inconsistent answer on a form can lead to a finding of misrepresentation, which can bar you permanently. If something in your history is awkward, disclose it and get advice on how.
• Paying someone who promises a guarantee. No agent, consultant or "connection" can guarantee a visa. Pay government fees only through official .gov sites, and never pay anyone for a job offer that a company hasn't confirmed to you directly.
• Missing deadlines. Cap registration, document requests from the National Visa Center and interview notices all have hard dates. Check your accounts weekly.

A Realistic Timeline for a 2027 Move

Treat these dates as patterns rather than promises.

• H-1B: if the season follows recent years, registration opens in March 2027 and the earliest start date is October 1, 2027. Find a sponsor and confirm the wage level in late 2026 or early 2027.
• Student visa: apply to schools in fall 2026 through early 2027 for a fall 2027 start, then book your visa interview as soon as your I-20 arrives.
• Spouse of a US citizen: allow at least a year, and possibly longer given the recent consular pauses.
• Employment green card: anywhere from about two years to over a decade, depending on your category and country of birth.

Final Thoughts

Moving to the US in 2027 will cost more and take longer than the rosier blog posts suggest, and the rules are less settled than they've been in years. But people still make it happen every day, and most of them did it by picking the route that matched their real situation instead of the one they'd heard the most about. A software engineer with three offers doesn't need the diversity lottery. Someone married to a citizen shouldn't be spending money on an investor program.

Start by writing down what you have: your education, work history, savings, any relatives in the US and your country of birth. Then look for the one or two routes where your details are strongest, and read the official requirements for those. Set aside money for a proper legal consultation, keep every document in a folder you can find in a hurry, and check official sources again before every payment, since a rule that was true when you started may have changed by the time you file.