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DUI visa costs: the arrest can revoke the visa before the case is decided
Every other page on this site prices consequences inside the criminal and licensing systems. For a noncitizen, a DUI also reaches a third system with its own prices: the visa in the passport. Our Canada guide prices looking north across a border after a DUI; this page prices the United States' own visa machinery — prudential revocation after an arrest, the new application that travel then requires, and the application fees the State Department actually publishes.
Prudential revocation: an arrest is enough
Section 221(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the Secretary of State and consular officers the power to revoke a visa at any time, in their discretion. The State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual, at 9 FAM 403.11, builds the DUI practice on that power: where post-issuance information indicates a visa holder may be inadmissible or ineligible, the visa may be prudentially revoked, and published summaries of the Manual's DUI guidance describe consulates revoking a nonimmigrant visa when a driving-under-the-influence arrest or conviction within the previous five years comes to the Department's attention through law-enforcement databases — on the arrest record, without waiting for a conviction.
Two consequences follow that readers consistently underestimate, and both are about what revocation is not. A prudential revocation cancels the visa as a travel document; it does not, by itself, terminate the holder's immigration status while the person remains inside the United States. But the moment that person travels abroad, the revoked visa cannot be used to return: a new visa must be applied for and issued at a consular post before re-entry. Published guidance also notes that a revocation can end eligibility to travel under the Visa Waiver Program's ESTA system, pushing a traveller who previously needed no visa interview into the full application process priced below.
The new application is where the DUI is examined. Consular officers refer applicants with a DUI history to a panel physician — a doctor approved by the consulate — to assess whether the applicant has an alcohol-related condition associated with harmful behaviour that bears on admissibility under the health-related grounds. The referral can hold an application in administrative processing while the evaluation is completed and its results considered. The panel physician's charge is set by the physician and the post, not by a State Department schedule, so it is the one central cost of this route that no official fee table publishes — a gap this page states plainly rather than filling with a borrowed figure.
The visa components that are published
The State Department's schedule of fees for consular services is codified at 22 CFR 22.1, and its nonimmigrant visa application processing fees are the priced rows below. The fees are per person and are processing fees: they are charged for the application itself, whether or not a visa is ultimately issued. Which row applies depends on the visa category the traveller must reapply under — the same category logic as a first application, because in fee terms that is what a post-revocation application is.
| DUI component | Published amount |
|---|---|
| Prudential revocation of the existing visa (INA § 221(i); 9 FAM 403.11) | No fee is published for the revocation itself — the cost arrives at reapplication, below; the revoked visa is invalid for travel even though status inside the United States is not terminated by the revocation alone |
| Non-petition-based nonimmigrant visa application (22 CFR 22.1, item 21(a)) | $185 per person — visitor, student and most other non-petition categories, E category excepted |
| Petition-based nonimmigrant visa application (item 21(b)) | $205 per person — H, L, O, P, Q and R categories |
| E category nonimmigrant visa application (item 21(c)) | $315 per person — treaty trader, investor and Australian specialty-occupation categories |
| Panel physician evaluation after a DUI referral | No State Department fee schedule publishes this charge — set by the panel physician and post; described, not priced |
Sources: Immigration and Nationality Act § 221(i); U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual 9 FAM 403.11 and 302.2, as summarised in published State Department guidance references; 22 CFR 22.1, Schedule of Fees for Consular Services, item 21. Last verified: October 2026.
The fine is one line in a longer stack — court costs, program fees, interlock, supervision and reinstatement all bill separately. Price the layers that apply to your case in the calculator.
Open the DUI cost calculatorWhat the visa layer does not publish
The application fees are the smallest part of this layer for most travellers, and the rest resists pricing for honest reasons. A refused or long-pending application can strand a traveller abroad between jobs, terms or family events; those losses are real and entirely case-specific. An immigrant-visa or adjustment case touched by a DUI runs on different forms and different fee schedules from the nonimmigrant schedule priced here, and a DUI that is joined by other offences can raise criminal grounds of inadmissibility that a simple DUI, on the published guidance, does not by itself establish — this page does not price immigration outcomes it cannot cite, and it is not immigration advice.
What can be budgeted from published sources is the reapplication itself: the correct row of 22 CFR 22.1 for the traveller's category, per person, plus travel to a consular post and the unpublished panel-physician charge where a referral is made. Families should note the per-person wording: a spouse and children who also hold visas that are revoked, or who must apply alongside, each carry their own application fee at their own category rate.
Readers holding a visa should treat the arrest, not the conviction, as the trigger event for planning: because the revocation practice described in the Manual's summaries runs on arrest information reaching the Department, waiting for the criminal case to end before checking the visa's status can mean discovering the revocation at an airport. The criminal case itself is priced in the state breakdown for the state of arrest; this page exists because, for a noncitizen, that is not the only bill the arrest creates.
Common questions
- Can a DUI arrest revoke a U.S. visa without a conviction?
- Yes, under the prudential revocation practice. Section 221(i) of the INA allows revocation at the Secretary's discretion, and the Foreign Affairs Manual guidance summarised on this page describes consulates revoking nonimmigrant visas when a DUI arrest or conviction within the previous five years comes to light.
- How much does it cost to apply for a new visa afterwards?
- The State Department's schedule at 22 CFR 22.1 charges $185 per person for most non-petition-based nonimmigrant visas, $205 for petition-based H, L, O, P, Q and R categories, and $315 for the E category.
- Does revocation cancel immigration status inside the United States?
- No, not by itself, on the published guidance. Revocation cancels the visa as a travel document; a person who travels abroad must obtain a new visa before returning, and may be referred to a panel physician because of the DUI history.
Related cost guides: entering Canada after a DUI, out-of-state DUI costs, DUI expungement and record-relief costs, underage DUI costs.
Sources: INA § 221(i); 9 FAM 403.11; 22 CFR 22.1. Last verified: October 2026. This page is educational information about costs only — not legal advice. Laws and fees change; confirm current figures with your court and your state's driver-licensing agency.