What naturalization costs - the N-400 filing fee and the full price of citizenship

The N-400 filing fee is $710 when you file Form N-400 online and $760 when you file on paper. There's no separate biometrics services fee for naturalization, so the fingerprint appointment, the interview, both tests and the oath ceremony are covered by that single payment. Fees and processing times below are current as of October 2026, and USCIS revises them periodically. A case usually costs more, because certified translations, document copies, travel to the field office and unpaid hours away from work sit outside the USCIS fee schedule. Only a lawful permanent resident can file Form N-400, so the green card comes first and this fee applies after that. If $710 is out of reach right now, two routes change the number: a full citizenship fee waiver through Form I-912, and a reduced fee of $380.

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How much does it cost to become a U.S. citizen?

Most applicants spend between roughly $710 and $1,500 to go from green card to citizenship. The full question, how much does it cost to become a U.S. citizen, has two answers: the fixed amount USCIS charges and the variable amount you spend getting there. Legal help, when a case calls for it, is priced separately on top of both. The USCIS side is published and fixed, so you can budget the citizenship application fee to the dollar before you file. Here's that published side, taken from the current fee schedule.

Filing online saves $50, and nothing else about the case changes. Paper filing is required in one situation: when you request a fee waiver or the reduced fee, USCIS won't take the application online. The current edition of Form N-400 is dated 01/20/25. Applicants age 75 and older pay the same amount as everyone else, since Form G-1055 lists no age-based category for Form N-400. Every figure in the table below is an estimate, several lines will be $0 for you, and totals move with your own documents and geography.

Add the two sides and most people land inside that $710 to $1,500 band.

What the N-400 filing fee covers

One payment covers the whole case, start to finish. USCIS doesn't bill per step, so nothing new is charged for the biometrics appointment, the interview, the two tests or the ceremony. In practice that one fee buys five things:

1. Review of your Form N-400, with the background checks that run alongside it.
2. The biometrics appointment, where USCIS takes your fingerprints and photograph.
3. The naturalization interview at your field office.
4. The English test and the civics test, both taken at that interview.

5. The oath of allegiance ceremony, where you become a U.S. citizen. If USCIS asks for more documents, reschedules your interview, or calls you back for a second attempt at a test, none of that carries a new fee. Renewing a green card is a separate application on Form I-90, with its own fee, so naturalizing and renewing are different filings. The green card renewal cost, the renewal steps and the renewal timeline sit in their own posts. If you're already a U.S. citizen and only need a document that proves it, Form N-600 is the filing you want. It produces a certificate of citizenship and costs $1,385 on paper or $1,335 online.

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If you can't afford the citizenship application fee: fee waiver and reduced fee

Two routes exist and they turn on different income tests: a full N-400 fee waiver drops the citizenship application fee to $0, while a reduced fee cuts it to $380. You request one or the other, never both, and either way the application goes in on paper. USCIS decides the fee request and the application together.

The citizenship fee waiver: who qualifies

A citizenship fee waiver is approved when you establish an inability to pay on at least one of three grounds. You request it on Form I-912, Request for Fee Waiver, or in a written request filed with your paper Form N-400. Any one of these three grounds is enough:

1. You or a close relative in your household receives a means-tested benefit such as SNAP, Medicaid, SSI, TANF or WIC.
2. Your household income is at or below 150% of the federal poverty guidelines on the day you file.
3. You face extreme financial hardship from extraordinary expenses, for example unexpected medical bills, unemployment, eviction or having no stable address.

What to send with an N-400 fee waiver request

For a means-tested benefit, send a dated letter from the granting agency naming the person, the agency and the benefit. For income, list every household member's earnings and attach a recent IRS Form 1040, W-2s, a month of consecutive pay stubs, or a letter from your employer. For hardship, describe the situation in detail and attach what you have. One Form I-912 can cover several family members filing together. If USCIS finds you aren't eligible, it may reject the N-400 fee waiver request and the underlying application with it, which means refiling with payment or with a stronger request.

The reduced fee: $380 for households under 400% of the poverty guidelines

The reduced fee is $380, and it applies when your documented annual household income is not more than 400% of the federal poverty guidelines. Form N-400 is the only USCIS form with a reduced fee, and no separate form requests it. You send $380 plus the income documentation with a paper application. If your income sits above 150% of the guidelines but at or below 400%, the reduced fee is the route built for your situation.

Who pays nothing: military applicants under INA 328 and 329

Service members and veterans pay no filing fee at all. The amount is $0 under INA section 328, which covers at least one year of honorable service at any time. It's also $0 under INA section 329, which covers honorable service during a designated period of hostilities. Applicants under INA 329 carry one additional advantage: they're exempt from the continuous residence and physical presence requirements, which INA 328 applicants still have to meet.

Costs the USCIS fee schedule doesn't list

Four lines account for most of the out-of-pocket spend, and none of them appear on any government fee table. Any document you submit that isn't in English needs a full English translation, with a certification from the translator confirming it's complete and accurate. Market rates for certified translation run roughly $20 to $75 per page, and the page count drives the bill more than anything else. USCIS asks for two passport-style photographs only when you apply from outside the United States, which covers service members abroad and spouses of citizens working for qualifying employers overseas. Court dispositions, police certificates and civil records held by another country can take weeks and cost anywhere from nothing to a few hundred dollars, courier charges included. The process also brings you to a federal building three times: once for biometrics, once for the interview and once for the oath ceremony. Each trip costs travel plus whatever unpaid hours it takes.

Is the N-400 filing fee refundable if you're denied, and what does refiling cost?

USCIS keeps the money either way: its published fee policy states that filing and biometric service fees are final and nonrefundable, regardless of any action it takes on your application. The same holds if you withdraw the application yourself, and a denial does not return the $710. A second Form N-400 is a new application, so the $710 or $760 applies from scratch. A new fee waiver or reduced-fee request has to go with it if you still need one, and nothing from the first filing carries over. A rejection happens before any decision on the merits, usually for a missing signature or an incorrect payment, and USCIS returns the package for you to correct and resend. A denial comes after adjudication, and the N-400 filing fee is gone with it.

How long Form N-400 takes, and what drives the wait

The case runs from the day you file to the day you take the oath. USCIS reported a national median of 7.4 months for applications completed in fiscal year 2026. Its monthly report to Congress for August 2026 put the average at 12.7 months. Both figures cover the full case rather than one leg of it.

The case moves in three legs: receipt to biometrics, biometrics to interview, and interview to oath. The middle leg is where the months accumulate, while the last one is often the shortest, since many field offices hold the ceremony on the same day as the interview. That middle stretch is driven by field office capacity and interview scheduling rather than by anything you or your representative did. Interview slots are allocated office by office, so two applicants who filed the same week in different cities can wait very differently. The officer reviews your application line by line, asks about travel, taxes, arrests and marital history, then administers the English test and the civics test. Our post on green card interview questions covers how USCIS runs this kind of interview and what to bring.

When paying for help changes the N-400 cost

Most of the N-400 cost is fixed, and legal help is the one line that genuinely moves it. Three fact patterns are the usual reason people bring in an attorney, and each one turns on a legal question rather than on paperwork.

1. A long trip abroad. An absence of six months or more raises a presumption that you broke continuous residence, and the officer will ask you to rebut it.
2. Any arrest or citation, however old. Anything on your record goes to the good moral character finding, including matters that were dismissed, expunged or sealed.

3. A green card USCIS may look at again. At the N-400 interview an officer can re-examine how you obtained permanent residence in the first place. None of these three make an attorney mandatory, and many people with clean records and no long absences file on their own. In those three situations, what legal help buys is a reading of the risk before you file, which is a different service from help completing the form. Our post on whether you need an immigration lawyer works through that decision, while immigration lawyer cost and what immigration help costs cover the pricing models you'll run into. If you do hire someone, they file Form G-28 to enter their appearance, which is what lets USCIS send them your notices.

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What the N-400 filing fee looks like inside one Tukki price

Tukki quotes one end price for a case, and that price already includes the USCIS fees and any Request for Evidence (RFE) response the case needs. Firms that bill per service price the application, the government fee, an RFE response and each round of correspondence separately. Both models are common. The pricing tool returns a figure and a timeline for your situation without a call, and our process sets out the steps behind that figure. The N-400 filing fee is part of the number you see there rather than an invoice that arrives later.

See what your case costs

Tukki is a U.S. immigration provider whose cases are led by immigration attorneys. The work covers employment-based visas and green cards, from H-1B and O-1A to EB-1A and EB-2 NIW, along with family and citizenship filings. If you're weighing whether to file Form N-400 this year, a call is the quickest way to find out what your case needs.

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