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 New York, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a immigration in New York costs on average $6,250, typically $3,750-$10,000 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $240 to $445 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 | $2,300 | $3,500 | 3-6 months |
| Moderate | $3,750 | $6,250 | $10,000 | 6-12 months |
| Complex | $9,400 | $12,950 | $17,700 | 12-24+ months |
Last verified: June 2026
$240 – $445/ hour
Median: $325/hr
6-12 months
For moderate complexity cases
New to how attorney fees work? Read the legal fees guide — hourly, flat, and contingency billing explained.
Researching costs in another area? These free tools from our network may help.
Add this calculator to your own site with a copy-paste snippet — includes an attribution link back to this page.
<iframe
id="legalcostcalc-embed"
src="https://legalcostcalc.co/embed/new-york/immigration-cost"
title="New York Immigration Cost Calculator"
width="100%"
height="720"
style="border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:8px;max-width:768px;"
loading="lazy"
></iframe>
<p style="font-size:12px;text-align:center;">
<a href="https://legalcostcalc.co/new-york/immigration-cost?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=embed_snippet" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow ugc">
Powered by LegalCostCalc
</a>
</p>
<script>
window.addEventListener("message", function (event) {
if (!event.data || event.data.type !== "legalcostcalc:embed-resize") return;
var frame = document.getElementById("legalcostcalc-embed");
if (frame && typeof event.data.height === "number") {
frame.style.height = event.data.height + "px";
}
});
</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 New York. The recorded median total is $6,250, with reported quotes clustering between $3,750 and $10,000. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,075–$2,740, which leaves roughly $3,510–$5,175 of the New York 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 $6,250, the median immigration cost in New York runs 27% above the $4,938 national average across all 50 states and DC.
New York carries 3 rows — simple, $1,150–$3,500 at $180–$355/hr over 3-6 months; moderate, $3,750–$10,000 at $240–$445/hr over 6-12 months; complex, $9,400–$17,700 at $300–$535/hr over 12-24+ months — on 4 shared citations. Those figures put it in the top quarter of the table.
$6,250 is a median, not the middle of the band — $2,500 above the $3,750 floor, $3,750 under the $10,000 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 49.
New York ranks 2nd of 49 tracked states for a immigration, inside the highest-cost quarter of the table. The gap to the $4,750 midpoint is $1,500 — 32% — and only 1 states record a higher median.
Rhode Island is the nearest state below at $6,250 — $0 away — while the next state up, Hawaii, is a wider $900 step at $7,150. New York therefore sits at the top edge of a band rather than in the middle of one.
4 tracked states — Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, New Hampshire among them — record a median within three percent of New York's $6,250. The figure sits in the densest part of the immigration distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
Rate and total sit 2 places apart — 4th of 49 at $325 an hour against 2nd on the immigration total — which is close enough to read as the same signal.
| Rank | State | Median | Against New York |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | $7,150 | +$900 |
| 2 | New York | $6,250 | — |
| 3 | Rhode Island | $6,250 | −$0 |
| 4 | Vermont | $6,200 | −$50 |
| 5 | Washington | $6,200 | −$50 |
| 6 | New Hampshire | $6,150 | −$100 |
| 7 | Connecticut | $6,050 | −$200 |
| 8 | New Jersey | $5,950 | −$300 |
The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 10 below New York against 0 above. $900 up or $0 down moves New York a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 2nd position is propped up by a thin immigration field above it and a crowded one beneath.
Climbing five places would mean passing Hawaii and adding $900 to the $6,250 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, New Hampshire, Connecticut: $200.
$900 short of Hawaii ($7,150), $2,900 clear of Kentucky ($3,350).
At $325 an hour, the $6,250 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 New York figure than behind the typical state's.
The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex immigration costs 5.6x a simple one in New York, but the implied workload only rises 3.4x — 9 hours at $270 becomes 31 hours at $415 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.54x carries an unusually large share of the increase.
In dollars the New York moderate band is wide: $3,750 to $10,000, a $6,250 range, $1,500 wider than the peer-median band of $4,750. End to end that is 19 hours at $325.
Across the 6-12 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $6,250 median is roughly $694 a month of elapsed time.
By implied hours New York falls to 10th of 49 at 19 hours, 8 places below its 2nd on cost — the immigration total arriving on less recorded work.
16% up the $3,750–$10,000 band sits the $4,750 table midpoint, buying 15 hours at $325 against the 19 the local immigration median implies — 4 hours apart.
| Measure | New York | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $6,250 | 2nd |
| Hourly median | $325 | 4th |
| Implied hours | 19 | 10th |
| Simple median | $2,300 | 10th |
| Complex median | $12,950 | 7th |
$325 an hour puts New York between New Jersey ($325) and California ($320) — not the immigration cost pairing.
New Jersey records the same $325: rate cannot separate them, totals do.
$6,250 buys 23 hours at $270, 19 at $325, 15 at $415.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Washington | $330 |
| 3 | New Jersey | $325 |
| 4 | New York | $325 |
| 5 | California | $320 |
| 6 | Connecticut | $320 |
The ranking barely moves across tiers — 10th at the simple tier, 2nd at moderate, 7th at complex of 49 — so New York keeps roughly the same relative position whether the immigration is straightforward or contested.
$2,300 is 10th of 49 on a straightforward immigration, under New Hampshire ($2,300) and over Vermont ($2,300), $400 over the $1,900 tier midpoint.
$12,950 is 7th of 49 once contested, between Colorado ($13,200) and District of Columbia ($12,600), $2,200 off the $10,750 tier midpoint.
$250 separates the simple ceiling of $3,500 from the moderate floor of $3,750, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $9,400 upward. The expensive end of a routine immigration and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in New York.
| Tier | New York | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $2,300 | 10th | $1,900 | 9 |
| moderate | $6,250 | 2nd | $4,750 | 19 |
| complex | $12,950 | 7th | $10,750 | 31 |
$2,300 drops New York to 10th of 49 on straightforward matters, 8 below its moderate position and $400 (21%) over the $1,900 tier midpoint.
9 implied hours at $270: 47% of the moderate tier's 19, over 3-6 months.
New Hampshire ($2,300) and Vermont ($2,300) bracket it — a $0 window.
8 states record a simple-tier median within three percent of $2,300, denser than the 4 around the moderate row.
$12,950 drops New York to 7th of 49 on contested matters, 5 below its moderate position and $2,200 (20%) over the $10,750 tier midpoint.
31 implied hours at $415: 163% of the moderate tier's 19, over 12-24+ months.
Colorado ($13,200) and District of Columbia ($12,600) bracket it — a $600 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $12,950 here, against 4 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Connecticut | $2,300 |
| 9 | New Hampshire | $2,300 |
| 10 | New York | $2,300 |
| 11 | Vermont | $2,300 |
| 12 | Colorado | $2,250 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Rhode Island | $13,250 |
| 6 | Colorado | $13,200 |
| 7 | New York | $12,950 |
| 8 | District of Columbia | $12,600 |
| 9 | California | $12,550 |
In New York a immigration is 4th of 8 at $6,250, between DUI / DWI and Personal Injury. At 50% of Criminal Defense ($12,450).
Across practice areas New York ranges from 2nd of 49 for Immigration to 12th for Divorce — a 10-place spread, with its 2nd on immigration inside it.
The spread across practice areas is wide. Immigration runs 32% above its own midpoint, while Estate Planning / Probate runs 8% above its own midpoint — 24 percentage points apart. A single "New York is expensive" or "New York is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.
New York's practice areas fan out more than most: its largest tracked median is 5.5x its smallest, against 5.1x for the typical state. Prices here are set matter by matter rather than by one statewide level.
Every one of the 8 matter types tracked for New York places it in the upper third of its table, which is why the 2nd on immigration is not an outlier.
That places the immigration figure in the 98th percentile of the 49 states tracked here.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $4,250 | $12,450 | $34,800 | 35 | 4th | +22% | New Hampshire |
| Divorce | $3,600 | $10,100 | $26,450 | 28 | 12th | +18% | Delaware |
| DUI / DWI | $4,250 | $8,800 | $20,600 | 27 | 9th | +18% | Alaska |
| Immigration | $2,300 | $6,250 | $12,950 | 19 | 2nd | +32% | Hawaii |
| Personal Injury | $1,600 | $5,700 | $19,400 | — | 8th | +10% | Connecticut |
| Bankruptcy | $1,650 | $4,300 | $5,950 | 14 | 6th | +19% | California |
| Real Estate Closing | $1,100 | $2,800 | $5,600 | 9 | 2nd | +26% | Hawaii |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $800 | $2,250 | $7,050 | 7 | 10th | +8% | Rhode Island |
Simple tier. $2,300 ÷ $270 = about 9 hours, spread over 3-6 months at roughly $511 a month. The $3,950 step to the moderate tier is 10 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $6,250 to $12,950 is a $6,700 step weighted toward price: 12 more hours at $325 is $3,900, but $415 across 31 hours adds $2,790 — 42% of it.
Borrowing the wrong row. Budgeting from Rhode Island ($6,250) lands $0 under New York; from Hawaii ($7,150), $900 over; from the $4,750 table midpoint, $1,500 out.
Both ends, in time. $3,750 is 12 hours at $325; $10,000 is 31. 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 New York's own recorded figures, $12,950 buys 5.6 matters at the $2,300 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 New Yorkcourt'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.