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 Louisiana, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a immigration in Louisiana costs on average $3,600, typically $2,150-$5,700 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $155 to $295 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 | $750 | $1,500 | $2,300 | 3-6 months |
| Moderate | $2,150 | $3,600 | $5,700 | 6-12 months |
| Complex | $6,650 | $9,150 | $12,500 | 12-24+ months |
Last verified: June 2026
$155 – $295/ hour
Median: $215/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 Louisiana. The recorded median total is $3,600, with reported quotes clustering between $2,150 and $5,700. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,075–$2,740, which leaves roughly $860–$2,525 of the Louisiana 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 $3,600, the median immigration cost in Louisiana runs 27% below the $4,938 national average across all 50 states and DC.
Louisiana carries 3 rows — simple, $750–$2,300 at $120–$235/hr over 3-6 months; moderate, $2,150–$5,700 at $155–$295/hr over 6-12 months; complex, $6,650–$12,500 at $195–$355/hr over 12-24+ months — on 4 shared citations. Those figures place it in the lower quarter of the table.
$3,600 is a median, not the middle of the band — $1,450 above the $2,150 floor, $2,100 under the $5,700 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 49.
Sorted by median cost, Louisiana is 46th of 49 for a immigration, placing it in the lowest-cost quarter of the table: $1,150 and 24% below the $4,750 midpoint, with 3 states recording a lower median still.
New Mexico ($3,650) and Oklahoma ($3,550) bracket Louisiana inside a $100 window — narrow enough that 46th is close to arbitrary.
New Mexico, Oklahoma record medians within three percent of Louisiana's $3,600. A immigration quote anywhere in that group is describing effectively the same market.
The two measures nearly agree: 45th of 49 on hourly rate at $215 an hour, 46th on total cost, 1 place apart.
| Rank | State | Median | Against Louisiana |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | Arkansas | $4,000 | +$400 |
| 41 | South Carolina | $4,000 | +$400 |
| 42 | South Dakota | $3,950 | +$350 |
| 43 | West Virginia | $3,950 | +$350 |
| 44 | Kansas | $3,800 | +$200 |
| 45 | New Mexico | $3,650 | +$50 |
| 46 | Louisiana | $3,600 | — |
| 47 | Oklahoma | $3,550 | −$50 |
| 48 | Alabama | $3,400 | −$200 |
| 49 | Kentucky | $3,350 | −$250 |
$50 up or $50 down moves Louisiana a row. A ten percent revision to the underlying figure would cross 7 rows in total — 4 up, 3 down — so the rank reads better as a band than as a precise place.
Climbing five places would mean passing South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, Kansas, New Mexico and adding $400 to the $3,600 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky: $250.
$3,550 short of Hawaii ($7,150), $250 clear of Kentucky ($3,350).
At $215 an hour, the $3,600 median represents about 17 hours of attorney time — a matter measured in days of work, not weeks. The peer median is 18 hours: Louisiana reaches its total in 1 fewer implied hours, because the rate rather than the workload carries more of it.
The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex immigration costs 6.1x a simple one in Louisiana, but the implied workload only rises 3.7x — 9 hours at $175 becomes 33 hours at $275 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.57x carries an unusually large share of the increase.
The Louisiana moderate band spans $2,150 to $5,700 — $3,550 — which is $1,200 narrower than the peer-median band of $4,750, so quoted immigration figures cluster more tightly here than in most tracked states. End to end that is 17 hours at $215.
Across the 6-12 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $3,600 median is roughly $400 a month of elapsed time.
Ranked by implied hours rather than money, Louisiana is 45th of 49 at 17 hours, where cost and rate also put it.
73% up the $2,150–$5,700 band sits the $4,750 table midpoint, buying 22 hours at $215 against the 17 the local immigration median implies — 5 hours apart.
| Measure | Louisiana | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $3,600 | 46th |
| Hourly median | $215 | 45th |
| Implied hours | 17 | 45th |
| Simple median | $1,500 | 43rd |
| Complex median | $9,150 | 39th |
$215 an hour puts Louisiana between South Dakota ($220) and Oklahoma ($205) — not the immigration cost pairing.
No other tracked state records $215 as its median rate, so the figure identifies Louisiana on its own within this dataset.
$3,600 buys 21 hours at $175, 17 at $215, 13 at $275.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 43 | South Carolina | $220 |
| 44 | South Dakota | $220 |
| 45 | Louisiana | $215 |
| 46 | Oklahoma | $205 |
| 47 | Alabama | $200 |
Louisiana moves up the table as complexity rises: 43rd at the simple tier, 46th at moderate, 39th at complex, a 4-place climb. The state's position on the headline moderate figure understates where it sits once a matter is contested.
$1,500 is 43rd of 49 on a straightforward immigration, under Alabama ($1,550) and over South Carolina ($1,500), $400 under the $1,900 tier midpoint.
$9,150 is 39th of 49 once contested, between Iowa ($9,200) and Nebraska ($9,050), $1,600 off the $10,750 tier midpoint.
The lower two bands run into each other — the simple tier tops out at $2,300 against a moderate floor of $2,150 — but there is a clear gap of $950 between the moderate ceiling of $5,700 and the complex floor of $6,650. In Louisiana the jump into contested work is a step, not a slope.
| Tier | Louisiana | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $1,500 | 43rd | $1,900 | 9 |
| moderate | $3,600 | 46th | $4,750 | 17 |
| complex | $9,150 | 39th | $10,750 | 33 |
$1,500 puts Louisiana 43rd of 49 on straightforward matters, 3 up on its moderate position, and $400 (21%) under the $1,900 tier midpoint.
9 implied hours at $175: 53% of the moderate tier's 17, over 3-6 months.
Alabama ($1,550) and South Carolina ($1,500) bracket it — a $50 window.
2 states sit within three percent of the $1,500 here, against 2 at the moderate row.
$9,150 puts Louisiana 39th of 49 on contested matters, 7 up on its moderate position, and $1,600 (15%) under the $10,750 tier midpoint.
33 implied hours at $275: 194% of the moderate tier's 17, over 12-24+ months.
Iowa ($9,200) and Nebraska ($9,050) bracket it — a $150 window.
6 states record a complex-tier median within three percent of $9,150, denser than the 2 around the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 41 | Tennessee | $1,600 |
| 42 | Alabama | $1,550 |
| 43 | Louisiana | $1,500 |
| 44 | South Carolina | $1,500 |
| 45 | West Virginia | $1,500 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 37 | Montana | $9,300 |
| 38 | Iowa | $9,200 |
| 39 | Louisiana | $9,150 |
| 40 | Nebraska | $9,050 |
| 41 | North Dakota | $8,900 |
In Louisiana a immigration is 5th of 8 at $3,600, between Personal Injury and Bankruptcy. At 44% of Criminal Defense ($8,250).
Across practice areas Louisiana ranges from 39th of 49 for Divorce to 47th for DUI / DWI — a 8-place spread, with its 46th on immigration inside it.
Louisiana is not equally priced in every practice area. Measured against each matter's own midpoint, Divorce runs 12% below its own midpoint while Personal Injury runs 30% below its own midpoint — a 18-point spread between the extremes.
The largest tracked median in Louisiana is 5.2x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.
All 7 tracked matter types place Louisiana in the lower third of their tables, the immigration figure included.
In percentile terms it sits at the 6th percentile of the 49 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $2,650 | $8,250 | $23,700 | 35 | 41st | −19% | Tennessee |
| Divorce | $2,500 | $7,500 | $17,650 | 32 | 39th | −12% | Idaho |
| DUI / DWI | $2,800 | $5,700 | $13,150 | 27 | 47th | −23% | Kansas |
| Personal Injury | $1,150 | $3,650 | $11,650 | — | — | −30% | — |
| Immigration | $1,500 | $3,600 | $9,150 | 17 | 46th | −24% | New Mexico |
| Bankruptcy | $1,300 | $2,650 | $3,950 | 14 | 43rd | −26% | New Mexico |
| Real Estate Closing | $750 | $1,600 | $3,350 | 8 | 41st | −28% | South Dakota |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $450 | $1,600 | $4,700 | 7 | 39th | −23% | Kentucky |
Simple tier. $1,500 ÷ $175 = about 9 hours, spread over 3-6 months at roughly $333 a month. The $2,100 step to the moderate tier is 8 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $3,600 to $9,150 is a $5,550 step, mostly work: 16 more hours at $215 is $3,440, while moving to $275 across 33 hours adds $1,980. Work carries 63%.
Borrowing the wrong row. Oklahoma ($3,550) is $50 light, New Mexico ($3,650) is $50 heavy — but the $4,750 table midpoint is out by $1,150, 23x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $2,150 is 10 hours at $215; $5,700 is 27. 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 Louisiana's own recorded figures, $9,150 buys 6.1 matters at the $1,500 simple median — or, counted in time, 33 implied hours against 9, a factor of 3.7 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the Louisianacourt'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.