Tourists and business visitors to the US from most of the world will have to pay additional fees or post bonds of from $250 to $15,000 per person — over and above the current $185 per person visa fee — under provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act enacted last month  and separate regulations under a preexisting law published today in the Federal Register.

The consequences for inbound international tourism as well as travel to meetings and conventions in the US from most of the world are likely to be devastating. Nobody is going to hold a meeting — conference, trade show, academic symposium, etc. —  in the US under these rules if they want global participation. If other countries reciprocate, as some probably will, US travelers could be hit with much higher fees when they travel abroad.

The biggest beneficiary of these changes to US laws and regulations is likely to be Mexico, where Cancun is by far the most obvious choice for meeting and convention planners looking for an alternative venue close to the US with more hotel rooms than anywhere in the Americas except Las Vegas, the busiest international airport in Latin America, and more welcoming entry and visa policies than the US for visitors from around the world.

Bonding companies and moneylenders from banks to informal lenders to loan sharks offering to underwrite loans and post bonds for would-be visitors who can’t afford to pay the US visa fees in full are also likely to profit from the new US rules. So will the bounty hunters they will hire to track down and collect from US visitors whose “visa bonds” (and whatever they put up as security for them) are forfeited because they can’t prove to the satisfaction of US authorities that they complied with all of the terms and conditions of entry to and departure from the US — or simply at the “discretion” of US visa officers.

The new US law and regulations establish a three-tier schedule of US fees for short-stay visitors, depending on the citizenship of the traveler:

1. Citizens of the small number of most US-favored nations in the US Visa Waiver Program will remain eligible to enter the US, after completing an extensive online questionnaire including  a list of all their social media accounts, for only a $21 Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) e-visa fee.
2. Citizens of countries that are neither especially favored nor disfavored by the US will be required to pay a visa integrity fee of at least $250 (in addition to the visa fee and other visa application requirements). The minimum of $250 is set by law, but the amount can be increased without limit at the discretion of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
3. Citizens of disfavored countries will be required to post  a visa bond of $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000, with $10,000 as the default, before their visa can be issued.

The visa integrity fee is mandated by Section 100007 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This law mandating the fee and setting the minimum amount at $250, adjusted for inflation each year after 2025, is already in effect, but the DHS has yet to issue any implementing regulations or begin to collect the fee. The law allows the amount of the visa integrity fee to be increased without limit above the statutory minimum, at any time, at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security. A notice in the Federal Register on July 22, 2025, said that “the fee will be implemented in a future publication” at an unspecified date.

The law allows, but does not require, the DHS to refund the fee after a visitor leaves the US. (“The Secretary of Homeland Security may…”, not “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall…”) The purpose of this new fee appears to be to motivate visitors to the US to be on their grovelingly best behavior to avoid prompting the DHS to keep their visa integrity fee. But the fee could be retained by the DHS for the benefit of the US Treasury regardless of what a visitor does or doesn’t do  or say before, during, or after their visit to the US.

The risk of forfeiting a bond will, of course, exert a chilling effect on the willingness of foreign visitors to say what they think about the US government — and will deprive US citizens of the opportunity to hear foreign perspectives in person without self-censorship.

Forfeiting a $250 fee is a minor matter compared to the other consequences that the DHS claims the authority to impose on foreign visitors. Does anyone really think the DHS needs more authority for petty monetary retaliation against foreign tourists or business visitors?

“Visa bonds” are authorized by current law, but the notice published today in the Federal Register notes that they have rarely if ever been imposed. A visa bond pilot program was proposed in late 2020 at the lame-duck end of the first Trump administration, but never put into effect. Now visa bonds of $5,000-$15,000 per person are to be required of all short-stay visitors to the US from countries not in the Visa Waiver Program that are selected by the DHS based on past visa overstay rates.

Few people will be able to post bonds this large in cash. Most visitors will be able to post bonds this large only with help from friends or family, by borrowing, or by paying a nonrefundable fee to a bonding company or informal bonding agent. It remains to be seen how much a visa bond will typically cost, what sort of bonding industry will evolve to meet this demand, what security they will require, or what tactics they will use to collect from US visitors whose bonds are forfeited.

Visa bonds will, in theory, be refundable, but the process for obtaining a refund or contesting the denial of a refund is complex and filled with procedural pitfalls. “The rights relating to the appeal of a DHS determination of a bond breach, including which rights would accrue after DHS makes a bond breach determination, are detailed in the instructions on Form I-352 and Form I-290B.” The burden of proof is on a visitor to prove, within 30 days of when a notice of default is mailed (regardless of how long the notice takes to arrive at a foreign address), that they complied with all conditions of their visa.

The visa bond regulations are being issued as a “temporary final rule” with no prior notice and no opportunity to comment on the errors and omissions in the State Department’s fiscal analysis. That cost-benefit analysis ignores the impact on the inbound US international travel industry and estimates the cost of applying for refund of a posted bond, including the time required for an in-person return visit to a US consulate or embassy (which in some large countries can be a thousand miles away) at only $47.

US citizens routinely overstay their visas to foreign countries, whether as tourists or digital nomads, and expect to get off with no more than trivial fines. Mexico is among the countries where US visitors often overstay their tourist visas. It would be interesting to compare a list of those countries where US citizens most often overstay their visas with those from which visitors most often overstay their visas to the US.

How would US citizens react if they had to put up a $10,000 bond before a visa was issued? What if they forfeited that amount if they failed to comply with even the most insignificant procedural requirements to register with the proper authorities (as is required in the US),  carry their immigration papers (in the US, “Once an alien has registered and appeared for fingerprinting… DHS will issue evidence of registration, which aliens over the age of 18 must carry and keep in their personal possession at all times”, even on the beach), or inadvertently overstayed their visa by a day or failed to register their departure? We’ll find out, we suppose, when other countries impose reciprocal requirements on US visitors.