US SEVIS I-901 Fee for Pakistani Students: Amount, Payment and Receipt (2026)

What is the I-901 SEVIS fee, and who charges it?

SEVIS stands for the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. It is the federal database that US immigration authorities use to track every international student and exchange visitor from the day a school accepts you until the day you finish or leave. The I-901 fee funds that system. Congress created it in 2004, and it is collected by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, a unit inside US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Think of it as a registration charge, not a visa charge. Your school does not keep this money. The US consulate does not keep it either. It goes straight to the program that runs SEVIS. You pay it once for a given course of study, and as long as you keep the same SEVIS ID and stay in status, you do not pay it again when you renew a visa later. That last point saves returning students a real amount, so hold on to your receipt for the whole degree.

Every F, M and J applicant is in scope. An F-1 is the visa most Pakistani university students use. M-1 is for vocational study. J-1 is the exchange category, used by some scholarship and cultural programs. The rules below apply to all three, with a different amount for each. Before any of this, your school has to enter your record in SEVIS and issue you a Form I-20, because the fee payment is tied to the SEVIS ID printed on that form.

How much is the SEVIS fee in 2026?

As of 28 September 2026, the ICE fee schedule sets the I-901 SEVIS fee for an F or M visa applicant at USD 350, paid in full. The J categories cost less. As of 28 September 2026, the same ICE fee schedule puts the J visa fee at USD 220, with a subsidised USD 35 rate for certain government-sponsored exchange categories.

Here is the full picture in one place, so you can see where you sit and budget for the whole set of government charges rather than just the one you remember.

These are federal amounts set in regulation, so they do not vary between Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. They are the kind of figure that gets repriced, though, which is why the dated links above matter. Open the ICE page yourself the week you pay and confirm the number has not moved. A fee raised quietly is the sort of thing that trips up a student who budgeted from an old blog post.

When do Pakistani students pay it?

The order is fixed, and getting it wrong is the single most common reason a student turns up unprepared. You cannot pay before your school issues the I-20, because you need the SEVIS ID from that form to complete the payment. You must pay before your visa interview, because the consular officer expects to see the receipt. So the fee sits in the middle: I-20 first, SEVIS fee next, then the DS-160 and the interview. Miss the order and you either cannot pay yet or you arrive without proof, and both waste an appointment that took weeks to get in Pakistan.

The sequence in plain steps

1. Accept your offer and give the school your passport and financial details so it can register you in SEVIS.
2. Receive the Form I-20 and check the SEVIS ID, which starts with the letter N.
3. Pay the I-901 SEVIS fee online and print the confirmation.
4. Complete the DS-160 form and pay the separate visa application fee.
5. Book and attend the interview, carrying the SEVIS receipt, the I-20 and the DS-160 confirmation.

Give the payment time to clear. The program asks you to allow at least three business days for the money to be received and verified, so do not leave it to the night before. If you book an early interview slot, pay the SEVIS fee the same day you book, not the same day you attend. For how the whole timeline stacks up from offer to passport, see our guide on how long a US F-1 student visa takes from Pakistan.

How do you pay the SEVIS fee from Pakistan?

You pay on the official portal, fmjfee.com. That is the only site that should ever take this payment. You fill in a Form I-901 online using the details from your I-20, then choose a payment method.

Payment methods that work from Pakistan

• Credit or debit card on fmjfee.com. A Visa or Mastercard issued in Pakistan usually works, as long as it is enabled for international online payments in US dollars. This is the fastest route.
• Western Union Quick Pay, useful when a card keeps getting declined. You pay in rupees at a Western Union agent and the payment maps to your I-901.
• Check or money order drawn on a US bank. This is slow and rarely practical from here, so most students skip it.

Have the I-20 open in front of you while you fill in the Form I-901. The site asks for your SEVIS ID, your name, your date of birth and your school code, and each field has to match the I-20 to the letter. Pakistani names get transcribed in different orders on different documents, so copy the name exactly as the school printed it, even if it looks odd to you. A mismatch here is the quiet error that surfaces months later.

If your own card fails, a parent, relative or your consultant can pay on your behalf. The payment is tied to your SEVIS ID, not to the cardholder, so who owns the card does not matter. What matters is that the SEVIS ID and your name are entered exactly as they appear on the I-20. One wrong digit and the receipt will not match your record, which is a problem you do not want to discover at the interview window.

How do you get and print the receipt?

The program stopped mailing paper I-797C receipts years ago. Your proof of payment is the confirmation you print from fmjfee.com. After the payment goes through, you can print it straight away, and you can reprint it any time by entering your SEVIS ID, surname and date of birth on the same site.

Print two copies. Keep one in your interview folder and one at home. The consular officer at Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore may glance at it or may not ask, but you never want to be the applicant who paid and cannot show it. If your school paid the fee for you, ask them for a copy of that confirmation and check the SEVIS ID on it matches your current I-20.

What the receipt must show

• Your name, spelled as on your passport and I-20.
• Your SEVIS ID, the number starting with N.
• The amount paid and the date.
• A payment or confirmation status of paid.

How is the SEVIS fee different from the visa fee?

These are two different payments to two different bodies, and students mix them up constantly. The SEVIS fee funds the tracking system and goes to ICE. The visa application fee, often called the MRV fee, pays for processing your visa and goes to the Department of State. You pay both, separately, and neither refunds if your visa is refused.

As of 28 September 2026, the Department of State fee page lists the nonimmigrant visa application fee for an F student at USD 185, which you pay on top of the SEVIS fee. So a normal F-1 applicant from Pakistan pays USD 350 for SEVIS and USD 185 for the visa application, which is USD 535 in federal charges before you count anything else. That total is worth writing down, because it is money you spend whether or not the visa is granted. If a refusal is a real worry for your profile, read our guide on 221(g) and administrative processing so you understand what a delay looks like.

Do spouses and children pay the SEVIS fee?

No. A spouse on an F-2 and children on F-2 do not pay the I-901 SEVIS fee. They still need their own Form I-20 from your school to apply for their visas, and they still pay their own visa application fee, but the SEVIS registration fee is not charged to them. The same holds for M-2 and J-2 family members.

There is one catch. If a dependant later wants to switch into their own student status, say your spouse is admitted to a degree and moves from F-2 to F-1, they must pay the SEVIS fee before filing for that change. If you are weighing bringing family, our guide on bringing dependants while studying abroad covers the wider cost and eligibility picture.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Most SEVIS fee problems are small and preventable. Here are the ones that actually cost Pakistani students time.

• Paying too late. A payment made the night before an interview may not be verified in the system yet. Pay days ahead.
• Mistyping the SEVIS ID. The receipt then belongs to nobody. Copy the N-number straight from the I-20.
• Paying on the wrong site. Only fmjfee.com is official. Sites that promise to pay it for a markup are how fee fraud happens.
• Paying before the I-20 arrives. You cannot, and trying wastes an evening.
• Losing the receipt. Reprint it from fmjfee.com and keep a copy for the whole degree.

Fee fraud deserves its own line. The program warns that if a payment is later disputed or reversed as fraudulent, your SEVIS record can be flagged, and a flag at a port of entry is a serious problem. Pay from a card you control, on the official site, and keep the confirmation.

What happens if you do not pay?

Skipping the fee does not delay your plans a little. It stops them. If you are required to pay the SEVIS fee and you do not, you will be refused the visa, or refused entry at the airport. The system is built to catch it early.

There is a narrow safety net at the border, and it is not one you want to rely on. If a student reaches a US port of entry without a verified payment, CBP will issue that student a Form I-515A, which allows 30 days to make payment for the I-901 SEVIS fee. That clock is short, the flag on your record is real, and a missed 30-day window can lead to your record being cancelled and referred for investigation. Pay before you travel and none of this touches you. The lesson is simple: this is a small fee with an oversized cost when it is left undone.

A worked example with dates

Ayesha from Lahore is admitted to a masters starting in late August. Here is how her payments fall.

• Early June. She confirms her place and sends the university her passport and bank statements. The school registers her in SEVIS.
• Mid June. Her Form I-20 arrives by email. The SEVIS ID starts with N. She checks her name and course dates against her passport.
• The same week. She pays the USD 350 SEVIS fee on fmjfee.com with her Pakistani debit card, after enabling international payments, and prints two copies of the confirmation.
• Late June. She completes the DS-160, pays the USD 185 visa fee, and books the earliest Islamabad interview slot she can find.
• Interview day. She carries the I-20, the SEVIS receipt, the DS-160 confirmation, and her financial documents. The officer approves her visa.

Notice what she did not do. She did not wait until interview week to pay SEVIS. She did not use a stranger’s website. She paid, printed, and moved on. If your funds picture is the part you are unsure about, our guide on how much bank statement is needed for a US F-1 visa is the place to start, and after you land you will want to understand OPT work authorisation for the year after your degree.

Frequently asked questions