How to Fill Out and Submit Form G-1450: Split Payments and Mailing

Form G-1450 is the one-page authorization you include in a mailed USCIS package to let the agency charge your credit, debit, or prepaid card for the filing fee. Get the fields right, put the form on top of the package, and confirm the card will clear: a single decline or mistake rejects the entire application with no second attempt at the charge.¹

When You Use It, and When You Don’t

Use G-1450 whenever you mail a benefit request to a USCIS lockbox or service center and want to pay by card. That covers most of the common paper filings, including Form N-400, Form I-90, Form I-765, and Form I-131. Field offices generally don’t take it, with one narrow exception: you may use a single G-1450 when requesting emergency advance parole in person.²

If you file online through myUSCIS, skip the form entirely. Online filings are paid through Pay.gov during the submission itself.²

What USCIS Will Accept

USCIS takes Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover, including debit and prepaid cards on those networks.² The card has to be issued by a U.S. financial institution. A card issued by a foreign bank won’t be processed even if it carries one of those logos.³

The cardholder and the applicant don’t have to be the same person. The form has separate name fields, so a relative, employer, or attorney can pay on your behalf. Whoever owns the card signs the authorization.

Filling Out the Form

Download the current edition from uscis.gov/g-1450 and type or print in black ink.³ Four sections:

Applicant information. Your legal last, first, and middle name, exactly as they appear on the application you’re filing.
Cardholder billing information. The cardholder’s full name as printed on the card, plus the billing address the card issuer sends statements to.
Card details. Check the box for the network, then enter the card number, CVV, expiration date in mm/yyyy format, and the exact dollar amount you’re authorizing.
Signature and contact. Daytime phone, email, and a handwritten signature from the cardholder. Without an authorized signature, USCIS cannot process the payment.³

The authorized amount must match the current filing fee for your form. Fees change. Look up the number on the USCIS Fee Calculator at uscis.gov before you write it in; an outdated figure is one of the easier ways to get rejected.

Splitting a Payment Across Cards

If one card can’t cover the whole fee, you can split the payment. Fill out a separate G-1450 for each card and make the amounts add up to the total. Every card still has to be issued by a U.S. bank and carry one of the four accepted logos. You cannot mix a G-1450 with a G-1650 (ACH bank transfer) to split the fee for the same application.²

Filing more than one application at once? USCIS recommends paying each fee separately rather than putting several fees on a single G-1450. When one payment covers a bundle, a problem with any single application rejects the whole package.² Two spouses filing N-400s, for instance, protect each other by using two separate G-1450s.

Mailing the Package

Put the completed G-1450 on top of the application before you seal the envelope.⁴ Lockbox staff open thousands of packages a day, and the placement lets them process your charge right away.

Mail the package to the address listed in the “Where to File” section on the USCIS page for your specific form.⁴ Addresses differ by form, and USCIS publishes separate addresses for USPS and for private couriers like FedEx or UPS.⁵

What Happens After USCIS Receives It

USCIS enters the card information into a secure payment system and runs the authorized charge. Once the transaction clears, the agency destroys the G-1450, so your card details don’t stay in your immigration file.⁴

If the card is declined for any reason, USCIS will not retry. The agency rejects the entire application and returns the package to you.¹ No grace period, no call to fix the problem, no swap to a different card. You also lose your filing date. When you refile, the new submission gets a new receipt date, which can matter for applications where timing affects eligibility or visa availability.⁶

Preventing a Declined Card

A decline is the single most common way this form causes problems, and it’s preventable. Before you seal the envelope:

Confirm the card has enough available credit or balance to cover the full fee. USCIS fees for family-based petitions and naturalization run into hundreds of dollars, and a card near its limit will decline.
Call your card issuer. Large charges from an unfamiliar government merchant can trip fraud filters. A quick heads-up that a charge from the Department of Homeland Security or USCIS is coming often prevents an automatic block.
Check the expiration date. USCIS may not run the charge for several weeks after receiving your package. If the card expires in the meantime, the charge fails. Use one that stays valid well past your mailing date.
Verify the card number and CVV against the physical card. A single transposed digit causes a decline.

If You’d Rather Pay From a Bank Account

Form G-1650 does the same job as G-1450 but authorizes an ACH debit from a U.S. bank account instead of a card charge.⁷ You supply the routing and account numbers, and the same package rules apply: form on top, exact fee amount, U.S. account only.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 1 Part B Chapter 3 – Fees
2
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Pay With a Credit Card by Mail
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. G-1450, Authorization for Credit Card Transactions
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. G-1450, Authorization for Credit Card Transactions
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Lockbox Filing Locations Chart for Certain Non-Family-Based Forms
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 1 Part B Chapter 6 – Submitting Requests
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. G-1650, Authorization for ACH Transactions