Embassy of the United States of America

Visa Application Processing Fee

How to Pay from the United States

Dear Sir/Madam:

As you know, US Embassies and Consulates worldwide are required to collect a nonimmigrant visa application-processing fee. Formerly called the MRV fee, the fee is used to defray the costs of the machine-readable visa and visa-lookout technology. As of February 1, 1998, the fee is $45 per applicant. This fee is nonrefundable, and is payable whether a visa is issued or not. In Japan, this fee is collected in yen only. It must be paid into a special touza account the Embassy maintains at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

We wish to maintain our practice of accepting applications for revalidation of nonimmigrant visas by mail from the United States for Japanese applicants previously resident in Tokyo's consular district. To accommodate this, we will accept US dollar payments of the visa application processing fee from applicants in the United States.

Due to a recent change in the Embassy's financial policy, we can no longer accept bank-certified cashier's checks. We regret any inconvenience that this may cause our customers.

Payment must now be in the form of a postal money order made payable to "U.S. Embassy, Tokyo." We are unable to accept bank-certified checks, cashier's checks, personal checks or any other form of payment. Please remember that a separate fee of US$45 must be paid for each application.

Yours truly,

Nonimmigrant Visa Unit

(Revised 9/21/99)