This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for immigration in District of Columbia, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a immigration in District of Columbia costs on average $5,850, typically $3,500-$9,400 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $230 to $430 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 6-12 months to resolve.
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $1,150 | $2,250 | $3,400 | 3-6 months |
| Moderate | $3,500 | $5,850 | $9,400 | 6-12 months |
| Complex | $9,150 | $12,600 | $17,200 | 12-24+ months |
Last verified: June 2026
$230 – $430/ hour
Median: $315/hr
6-12 months
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Immigration legal costs form around two separate line items that are easy to conflate: the attorney's fee for their work, and USCIS (or other federal agency) filing fees, which are set nationally and apply no matter which attorney — or no attorney — handles the case. A straightforward family-based petition with no complicating history is the lowest-cost scenario and is often billed as a flat fee. Employment-based petitions, waivers, or removal defense involve substantially more attorney hours preparing evidence and responding to government requests, which is reflected in the moderate and complex figures on this page.
Because filing fees are federal and state-independent, cost differences between states for immigration matters come almost entirely from local attorney market rates rather than from any difference in the underlying legal process. Cases that draw a Request for Evidence, involve a prior denial, or require appearing before an immigration judge add attorney hours (and sometimes additional filing fees) well beyond the base petition cost.
Take a moderate-complexity immigration matter in District of Columbia. The recorded median total is $5,850, with reported quotes clustering between $3,500 and $9,400. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,075–$2,740, which leaves roughly $3,110–$4,775 of the District of Columbia median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes. 2 further recorded fees are not itemised above and are not in that total.
At $5,850, the median immigration cost in District of Columbia runs 18% above the $4,938 national average across all 50 states and DC.
District of Columbia carries 3 rows — simple, $1,150–$3,400 at $175–$345/hr over 3-6 months; moderate, $3,500–$9,400 at $230–$430/hr over 6-12 months; complex, $9,150–$17,200 at $290–$520/hr over 12-24+ months — on 4 shared citations. Those figures put it in the top quarter of the table.
$5,850 is a median, not the middle of the band — $2,350 above the $3,500 floor, $3,550 under the $9,400 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 49.
District of Columbia ranks 11th of 49 tracked states for a immigration, inside the highest-cost quarter of the table. The gap to the $4,750 midpoint is $1,100 — 23% — and only 10 states record a higher median.
California ($5,850) and Illinois ($5,850) bracket District of Columbia inside a $0 window — narrow enough that 11th is close to arbitrary.
5 tracked states — New Jersey, Colorado, California, Illinois among them — record a median within three percent of District of Columbia's $5,850. The figure sits in the densest part of the immigration distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
The two measures nearly agree: 9th of 49 on hourly rate at $315 an hour, 11th on total cost, 2 places apart.
| Rank | State | Median | Against District of Columbia |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Washington | $6,200 | +$350 |
| 6 | New Hampshire | $6,150 | +$300 |
| 7 | Connecticut | $6,050 | +$200 |
| 8 | New Jersey | $5,950 | +$100 |
| 9 | Colorado | $5,900 | +$50 |
| 10 | California | $5,850 | −$0 |
| 11 | District of Columbia | $5,850 | — |
| 12 | Illinois | $5,850 | −$0 |
| 13 | Massachusetts | $5,700 | −$150 |
| 14 | Utah | $5,600 | −$250 |
| 15 | Texas | $5,550 | −$300 |
| 16 | Minnesota | $5,400 | −$450 |
| 17 | Maryland | $5,350 | −$500 |
The 11th position is not a stable fact about District of Columbia: $0 up or $0 down moves District of Columbia a row, and a ten percent revision in either direction would cross 16 rows, 8 above and 8 below in near-equal numbers.
Climbing five places would mean passing New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado, California and adding $300 to the $5,850 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Illinois, Massachusetts, Utah, Texas, Minnesota: $450.
$1,300 short of Hawaii ($7,150), $2,500 clear of Kentucky ($3,350).
At $315 an hour, the $5,850 median represents about 19 hours of attorney time — a matter measured in days of work, not weeks. The peer median is 18 hours, so 1 more hours of work sit behind the District of Columbia figure than behind the typical state's.
The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex immigration costs 5.6x a simple one in District of Columbia, but the implied workload only rises 3.4x — 9 hours at $260 becomes 31 hours at $405 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.56x carries an unusually large share of the increase.
In dollars the District of Columbia moderate band is wide: $3,500 to $9,400, a $5,900 range, $1,150 wider than the peer-median band of $4,750. End to end that is 19 hours at $315.
Across the 6-12 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $5,850 median is roughly $650 a month of elapsed time.
By implied hours District of Columbia falls to 18th of 49 at 19 hours, 7 places below its 11th on cost — the immigration total arriving on less recorded work.
21% up the $3,500–$9,400 band sits the $4,750 table midpoint, buying 15 hours at $315 against the 19 the local immigration median implies — 4 hours apart.
| Measure | District of Columbia | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $5,850 | 11th |
| Hourly median | $315 | 9th |
| Implied hours | 19 | 18th |
| Simple median | $2,250 | 13th |
| Complex median | $12,600 | 8th |
$315 an hour puts District of Columbia between Rhode Island ($320) and Maryland ($315) — not the immigration cost pairing.
4 other states record exactly $315 — Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia among them — so rate is a coarse instrument in this immigration table.
$5,850 buys 23 hours at $260, 19 at $315, 14 at $405.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | New Hampshire | $320 |
| 8 | Rhode Island | $320 |
| 9 | District of Columbia | $315 |
| 10 | Maryland | $315 |
| 11 | Massachusetts | $315 |
District of Columbia moves up the table as complexity rises: 13th at the simple tier, 11th at moderate, 8th at complex, a 5-place climb. The state's position on the headline moderate figure understates where it sits once a matter is contested.
$2,250 is 13th of 49 on a straightforward immigration, under Colorado ($2,250) and over Pennsylvania ($2,250), $350 over the $1,900 tier midpoint.
$12,600 is 8th of 49 once contested, between New York ($12,950) and California ($12,550), $1,850 off the $10,750 tier midpoint.
$100 separates the simple ceiling of $3,400 from the moderate floor of $3,500, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $9,150 upward. The expensive end of a routine immigration and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in District of Columbia.
| Tier | District of Columbia | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $2,250 | 13th | $1,900 | 9 |
| moderate | $5,850 | 11th | $4,750 | 19 |
| complex | $12,600 | 8th | $10,750 | 31 |
$2,250 drops District of Columbia to 13th of 49 on straightforward matters, 2 below its moderate position and $350 (18%) over the $1,900 tier midpoint.
9 implied hours at $260: 47% of the moderate tier's 19, over 3-6 months.
Colorado ($2,250) and Pennsylvania ($2,250) bracket it — a $0 window.
8 states record a simple-tier median within three percent of $2,250, denser than the 5 around the moderate row.
$12,600 puts District of Columbia 8th of 49 on contested matters, 3 up on its moderate position, and $1,850 (17%) over the $10,750 tier midpoint.
31 implied hours at $405: 163% of the moderate tier's 19, over 12-24+ months.
New York ($12,950) and California ($12,550) bracket it — a $400 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $12,600 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Vermont | $2,300 |
| 12 | Colorado | $2,250 |
| 13 | District of Columbia | $2,250 |
| 14 | Pennsylvania | $2,250 |
| 15 | Massachusetts | $2,200 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Colorado | $13,200 |
| 7 | New York | $12,950 |
| 8 | District of Columbia | $12,600 |
| 9 | California | $12,550 |
| 10 | Oregon | $12,550 |
In District of Columbia a immigration is 4th of 8 at $5,850, between DUI / DWI and Personal Injury. At 48% of Criminal Defense ($12,250).
Across practice areas District of Columbia ranges from 4th of 49 for Estate Planning / Probate to 16th for Divorce — a 12-place spread, with its 11th on immigration inside it.
The spread across practice areas is wide. Immigration runs 23% above its own midpoint, while Personal Injury runs 1% above its own midpoint — 22 percentage points apart. A single "District of Columbia is expensive" or "District of Columbia is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.
The largest tracked median in District of Columbia is 5.1x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.
Every one of the 8 matter types tracked for District of Columbia places it in the upper third of its table, which is why the 11th on immigration is not an outlier.
In percentile terms it sits at the 79th percentile of the 49 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $3,750 | $12,250 | $35,150 | 36 | 5th | +20% | New York |
| Divorce | $3,500 | $9,700 | $23,100 | 28 | 16th | +13% | Connecticut |
| DUI / DWI | $4,300 | $8,650 | $21,100 | 27 | 10th | +16% | New York |
| Immigration | $2,250 | $5,850 | $12,600 | 19 | 11th | +23% | California |
| Personal Injury | $1,700 | $5,250 | $17,550 | — | 14th | +1% | Massachusetts |
| Bankruptcy | $1,550 | $4,200 | $5,450 | 14 | 8th | +17% | Virginia |
| Real Estate Closing | $1,100 | $2,550 | $4,850 | 9 | 9th | +15% | Connecticut |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $700 | $2,400 | $6,700 | 8 | 4th | +16% | Alaska |
Simple tier. $2,250 ÷ $260 = about 9 hours, spread over 3-6 months at roughly $500 a month. The $3,600 step to the moderate tier is 10 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $5,850 to $12,600 is a $6,750 step weighted toward price: 12 more hours at $315 is $3,780, but $405 across 31 hours adds $2,790 — 42% of it.
Borrowing the wrong row. Illinois ($5,850) is $0 light, California ($5,850) is $0 heavy — but the $4,750 table midpoint is out by $1,100, 1100x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $3,500 is 11 hours at $315; $9,400 is 30. Over the 6-12 months recorded for a moderate immigration, that is 1 to 3 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.
Contested against simple. At District of Columbia's own recorded figures, $12,600 buys 5.6 matters at the $2,250 simple median — or, counted in time, 31 implied hours against 9, a factor of 3.4 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the District of Columbiacourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.