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 Massachusetts, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a immigration in Massachusetts costs on average $5,700, typically $3,400-$9,100 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 | $1,100 | $2,200 | $3,300 | 3-6 months |
| Moderate | $3,400 | $5,700 | $9,100 | 6-12 months |
| Complex | $8,700 | $12,000 | $16,300 | 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 Massachusetts. The recorded median total is $5,700, with reported quotes clustering between $3,400 and $9,100. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,075–$2,740, which leaves roughly $2,960–$4,625 of the Massachusetts 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 $5,700, the median immigration cost in Massachusetts runs 15% above the $4,938 national average across all 50 states and DC.
Massachusetts carries 3 rows — simple, $1,100–$3,300 at $175–$345/hr over 3-6 months; moderate, $3,400–$9,100 at $230–$430/hr over 6-12 months; complex, $8,700–$16,300 at $290–$520/hr over 12-24+ months — on 4 shared citations. They put it above the midpoint, short of the top quarter.
$5,700 is a median, not the middle of the band — $2,300 above the $3,400 floor, $3,400 under the $9,100 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 49.
At 13th of 49, Massachusetts sits above the midpoint of the immigration table: $950 more than the $4,750 median state, or 20%, with 12 states recording a higher median.
In the immigration table Massachusetts falls between Utah at $5,600 and Illinois at $5,850, $100 above the first and $150 below the second.
5 tracked states — California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Utah among them — record a median within three percent of Massachusetts's $5,700. 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: 11th of 49 on hourly rate at $315 an hour, 13th on total cost, 2 places apart.
| Rank | State | Median | Against Massachusetts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Connecticut | $6,050 | +$350 |
| 8 | New Jersey | $5,950 | +$250 |
| 9 | Colorado | $5,900 | +$200 |
| 10 | California | $5,850 | +$150 |
| 11 | District of Columbia | $5,850 | +$150 |
| 12 | Illinois | $5,850 | +$150 |
| 13 | Massachusetts | $5,700 | — |
| 14 | Utah | $5,600 | −$100 |
| 15 | Texas | $5,550 | −$150 |
| 16 | Minnesota | $5,400 | −$300 |
| 17 | Maryland | $5,350 | −$350 |
| 18 | Nevada | $5,350 | −$350 |
| 19 | Maine | $5,300 | −$400 |
The 13th position is not a stable fact about Massachusetts: $150 up or $100 down moves Massachusetts a row, and a ten percent revision in either direction would cross 19 rows, 11 above and 8 below in near-equal numbers.
Climbing five places would mean passing New Jersey, Colorado, California, District of Columbia, Illinois and adding $250 to the $5,700 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Utah, Texas, Minnesota, Maryland, Nevada: $350.
$1,450 short of Hawaii ($7,150), $2,350 clear of Kentucky ($3,350).
At $315 an hour, the $5,700 median represents about 18 hours of attorney time — a matter measured in days of work, not weeks. That rounds to the same 18 hours as the peer median, so on workload Massachusetts is indistinguishable from the middle of the table at this precision.
The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex immigration costs 5.5x a simple one in Massachusetts, but the implied workload only rises 3.8x — 8 hours at $260 becomes 30 hours at $405 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.56x carries an unusually large share of the increase.
In dollars the Massachusetts moderate band is wide: $3,400 to $9,100, a $5,700 range, $950 wider than the peer-median band of $4,750. End to end that is 18 hours at $315.
Across the 6-12 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $5,700 median is roughly $633 a month of elapsed time.
By implied hours Massachusetts falls to 25th of 49 at 18 hours, 12 places below its 13th on cost — the immigration total arriving on less recorded work.
24% up the $3,400–$9,100 band sits the $4,750 table midpoint, buying 15 hours at $315 against the 18 the local immigration median implies — 3 hours apart.
| Measure | Massachusetts | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $5,700 | 13th |
| Hourly median | $315 | 11th |
| Implied hours | 18 | 25th |
| Simple median | $2,200 | 15th |
| Complex median | $12,000 | 13th |
$315 an hour puts Massachusetts between Maryland ($315) and Vermont ($315) — not the immigration cost pairing.
4 other states record exactly $315 — District of Columbia, Maryland, Vermont, Virginia among them — so rate is a coarse instrument in this immigration table.
$5,700 buys 22 hours at $260, 18 at $315, 14 at $405.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | District of Columbia | $315 |
| 10 | Maryland | $315 |
| 11 | Massachusetts | $315 |
| 12 | Vermont | $315 |
| 13 | Virginia | $315 |
The ranking barely moves across tiers — 15th at the simple tier, 13th at moderate, 13th at complex of 49 — so Massachusetts keeps roughly the same relative position whether the immigration is straightforward or contested.
$2,200 is 15th of 49 on a straightforward immigration, under Pennsylvania ($2,250) and over Minnesota ($2,200), $300 over the $1,900 tier midpoint.
$12,000 is 13th of 49 once contested, between New Jersey ($12,200) and Illinois ($11,800), $1,250 off the $10,750 tier midpoint.
$100 separates the simple ceiling of $3,300 from the moderate floor of $3,400, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $8,700 upward. The expensive end of a routine immigration and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in Massachusetts.
| Tier | Massachusetts | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $2,200 | 15th | $1,900 | 8 |
| moderate | $5,700 | 13th | $4,750 | 18 |
| complex | $12,000 | 13th | $10,750 | 30 |
$2,200 drops Massachusetts to 15th of 49 on straightforward matters, 2 below its moderate position and $300 (16%) over the $1,900 tier midpoint.
8 implied hours at $260: 44% of the moderate tier's 18, over 3-6 months.
Pennsylvania ($2,250) and Minnesota ($2,200) bracket it — a $50 window.
5 states sit within three percent of the $2,200 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
$12,000 keeps Massachusetts at 13th on contested matters, the same place it holds on the headline figure, $1,250 (12%) over the $10,750 tier midpoint.
30 implied hours at $405: 167% of the moderate tier's 18, over 12-24+ months.
New Jersey ($12,200) and Illinois ($11,800) bracket it — a $400 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $12,000 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | District of Columbia | $2,250 |
| 14 | Pennsylvania | $2,250 |
| 15 | Massachusetts | $2,200 |
| 16 | Minnesota | $2,200 |
| 17 | Illinois | $2,150 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Connecticut | $12,400 |
| 12 | New Jersey | $12,200 |
| 13 | Massachusetts | $12,000 |
| 14 | Illinois | $11,800 |
| 15 | Maine | $11,750 |
In Massachusetts a immigration is 4th of 8 at $5,700, between DUI / DWI and Personal Injury. At 53% of Criminal Defense ($10,800).
The state does not rank uniformly. Massachusetts is 2nd of 49 for Bankruptcy but 18th for Criminal Defense, a 16-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 13th on immigration says little about what the other lines cost.
The spread across practice areas is wide. Divorce runs 25% above its own midpoint, while Personal Injury runs 2% above its own midpoint — 23 percentage points apart. A single "Massachusetts is expensive" or "Massachusetts is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.
The practice areas sit unusually close together in Massachusetts — the largest tracked median is 4.6x the smallest, against 5.1x for the typical state — so one figure travels further across matter types here than it would elsewhere.
7 of 8 matter types rank Massachusetts in the upper third, 0 in the lower, 1 between; immigration is 13th.
In percentile terms it sits at the 75th percentile of the 49 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $4,050 | $10,800 | $34,850 | 31 | 18th | +6% | Maine |
| Divorce | $3,700 | $10,700 | $24,050 | 31 | 5th | +25% | Virginia |
| DUI / DWI | $4,150 | $8,050 | $18,450 | 26 | 17th | +8% | Vermont |
| Immigration | $2,200 | $5,700 | $12,000 | 18 | 13th | +20% | Illinois |
| Personal Injury | $1,850 | $5,300 | $16,400 | — | 13th | +2% | Colorado |
| Bankruptcy | $1,650 | $4,400 | $6,200 | 15 | 2nd | +22% | Hawaii |
| Real Estate Closing | $1,200 | $2,650 | $4,750 | 9 | 7th | +19% | California |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $750 | $2,350 | $7,200 | 7 | 6th | +13% | Vermont |
Simple tier. $2,200 ÷ $260 = about 8 hours, spread over 3-6 months at roughly $489 a month. The $3,500 step to the moderate tier is 10 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $5,700 to $12,000 is a $6,300 step weighted toward price: 12 more hours at $315 is $3,780, but $405 across 30 hours adds $2,700 — 42% of it.
Borrowing the wrong row. Utah ($5,600) is $100 light, Illinois ($5,850) is $150 heavy — but the $4,750 table midpoint is out by $950, 6x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $3,400 is 11 hours at $315; $9,100 is 29. 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 Massachusetts's own recorded figures, $12,000 buys 5.5 matters at the $2,200 simple median — or, counted in time, 30 implied hours against 8, a factor of 3.8 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the Massachusettscourt'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.