For an additional $1000 fee, a petitioner who is filing in one of the eligible categories can elect to file for Premium Processing. With Premium Processing, petitioners are guaranteed to receive an approval notice, intent to deny, or a request for evidence within 15 days of USCIS receiving their petition. If USCIS fails to fulfill their 15 day guarantee, a full refund will be awarded to the petitioner.

In addition, those who already have a pending EB-1A, EB-B, EB-2 (except NIW) or EB-3 I-140 filing, will be eligible to upgrade their filing to premium processing by filing the appropriate form and submitting the additional premium processing fee.

This new development is extreme valuable for those aliens who would like to try EB-1A and EB-1B petitions, as they may now know their case result within 15 days. In addition, this new development is beneficial for EB-2 and EB-3 I-140 petitioners in two areas 1) for those who are facing the 6 years limitation, the approval of an I-140 may allow them to take the benefit of a three year extension (this only applies to those visa numbers that are not current); and 2) it will allow alien beneficiaries to affix the priority date received from the labor certification to the alien, even if the alien, later on, can not process their I-485 through the same employer (due to a layoff or employer bankruptcy, etc).