How to Get a Spouse Visa: Forms, Interview, and Costs

To get a spouse visa for the United States, a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident files Form I-130 with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the foreign spouse then completes consular processing at a U.S. embassy abroad, which includes submitting documents through the National Visa Center, passing a medical exam, and attending a visa interview. Government fees run roughly $1,500 in total, and most couples should plan for the full process to take about 12 to 18 months, longer if the embassy is backlogged or documents need to be resubmitted.

IR1 or CR1: Which Spouse Visa You Get

Spouse visas fall into two categories based on how long you have been married on the day your spouse actually enters the United States. Married two years or more at entry, and your spouse receives an IR1 visa and a standard ten-year green card. Married less than two years at entry, and your spouse receives a CR1 visa and a two-year conditional green card that requires an additional step later to make permanent.¹

The clock runs from the marriage date to the U.S. entry date, so you cannot simply delay filing to skip conditional status. What matters is when your spouse actually walks in with the visa.

Both categories above assume a U.S. citizen is the petitioner. If a lawful permanent resident petitions for a spouse, the case falls into the F2A preference category instead. F2A is subject to per-country limits that can create a waiting period of months or years depending on the spouse’s country of birth, while immediate relatives of U.S. citizens have no annual cap.

Who Can Petition and Who Qualifies

The petitioner must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident and must provide evidence of the claimed relationship, including a marriage certificate issued by civil authorities and proof that any prior marriages for both parties were legally ended.² The marriage must be legally valid where the ceremony took place.

It also has to be genuine. Good faith is the single issue consular officers scrutinize most carefully, and the consequences of a fraud finding are severe. If the government determines a marriage was entered into to evade immigration laws, the foreign spouse faces a permanent bar from receiving any family-based visa petition in the future, with no waiver available.³

There is no minimum age to file the I-130 itself, but the financial sponsor must be at least 18 and domiciled in the United States to sign the required Affidavit of Support.⁴

Step 1: File Form I-130

The process formally begins when the petitioner files Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, with USCIS. The foreign spouse also completes Form I-130A, which provides supplemental background information. Even if your spouse is overseas and cannot physically sign I-130A, the form still needs to be filled out and included.⁵

Filing online costs $625; paper costs $675.⁶ Online filing through myUSCIS is usually faster and lets you track your case in real time.

After USCIS receives the petition, you get a receipt notice with a case number. If something is missing or unclear, you will receive a Request for Evidence with a response deadline, usually 84 days. Accuracy on the initial filing matters more than most people realize. A misspelled name, a wrong date of birth, or an address that does not match across forms can trigger an RFE that adds weeks or months. Double-check every entry against the original documents before you file. Once approved, USCIS forwards the case to the National Visa Center.

Step 2: The Affidavit of Support

Every spouse visa requires the petitioner to file Form I-864, the Affidavit of Support. This is a legally binding contract with the U.S. government in which the sponsor promises to support the incoming spouse at a level equal to at least 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines for the sponsor’s household size.⁷ Active-duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces sponsoring a spouse only need to meet 100 percent of the guidelines.⁸

For 2026, a sponsor with a household size of two (the petitioner and the incoming spouse) needs an annual income of at least $27,050 in the 48 contiguous states and D.C., $33,813 in Alaska, and $31,113 in Hawaii.⁹ Household size counts the sponsor, all dependents, anyone living with the sponsor whom they claim as a dependent, and every immigrant being sponsored.

If your income falls short, you have two options. You can count the net value of qualifying assets like savings, real estate equity, or stocks. For a citizen sponsoring a spouse, those assets must equal at least three times the income gap; for other relationships, five times.⁸ Or you can add a joint sponsor — a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, at least 18, domiciled in the United States, who files their own separate I-864 and takes on the same legal obligation. A joint sponsor does not need to be related to either spouse.

This obligation is not short-term. It continues until the sponsored spouse becomes a U.S. citizen, earns credit for roughly 40 qualifying quarters of work (about ten years), permanently leaves the country, or dies. Divorce does not end it.

Step 3: National Visa Center Processing

Once USCIS approves the I-130, the case moves to the National Visa Center (NVC). At this stage you pay two fees through the Consular Electronic Application Center: the immigrant visa application fee of $325 and the Affidavit of Support review fee of $120.¹⁰ The same portal is where you upload civil documents and submit the DS-260 immigrant visa application.

The NVC reviews everything for completeness. If it is all in order, they mark the case “documentarily qualified” and forward it to the U.S. embassy or consulate in your spouse’s country for interview scheduling. If documents are missing or unclear, the NVC sends the case back with instructions, and the clock resets on that portion. This phase alone can take several months.

Step 4: The Medical Exam

Before the interview, your spouse must complete a medical examination by a panel physician — a doctor specifically authorized by the U.S. embassy in their country.¹¹ The exam typically includes a physical, blood tests, a chest X-ray for tuberculosis, and a review of vaccination records.

Required vaccines depend on age and include protection against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, hepatitis A and B, varicella, tetanus, diphtheria, and seasonal influenza when available.¹² Applicants already up to date do not need additional shots.

Cost varies by country but generally runs $200 to $500. Results usually come in a sealed envelope the applicant brings to the interview, or go directly to the consulate. Do not open the sealed envelope. Opening it invalidates the results.

Step 5: The Visa Interview

The interview at the U.S. embassy or consulate is the final hurdle. A consular officer reviews the original documents, verifies the application information, and asks questions designed to test whether the marriage is genuine. Expect questions about how you met, your daily life together, each other’s families, and details about the wedding. The officer is checking for consistency between what both spouses have said across forms and in person.

Bring originals of every document you submitted as a copy, including the marriage certificate, birth certificates, financial records, and proof of relationship. The officer may also take fingerprints. Most of the time, you get a verbal decision at the interview. If approved, the passport comes back with the visa stamp within a few business days.

If the officer cannot approve on the spot, the case may go into “administrative processing,” which can last a few weeks to several months. A denial comes with a written explanation and, in some cases, can be overcome with additional evidence.

Documents You’ll Need to Gather

Beyond the forms, you need a paper trail proving the marriage is real. At a minimum, plan to include:

Certified marriage certificate issued by the civil authority where you were married.
Proof that any prior marriage of either party ended: divorce decrees, annulment orders, or death certificates.
Evidence of a shared life: joint bank statements, a lease or mortgage with both names, insurance policies naming each other as beneficiaries, or utility bills at a shared address.
Photographs across the relationship, ideally with family and friends rather than only posed couple shots.
Written statements from people who know you as a couple and can describe the relationship from personal observation.
The petitioner’s proof of status: U.S. passport, birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or green card.
The beneficiary’s birth certificate and valid passport.

Any document not in English needs a certified translation. Translation for a single-page document like a birth certificate typically runs about $25 to $50, though prices vary.

Total Cost

Government fees add up in stages:

I-130 petition: $625 online or $675 paper.⁶
Immigrant visa application: $325.¹⁰
Affidavit of Support review: $120.
Medical exam: roughly $200 to $500 depending on the country.
USCIS Immigrant Fee: $235, paid after visa approval but before the green card is produced.

That puts total government fees in the range of about $1,500 to $1,555 or more, not counting translations, certified copies, photographs, or travel to the embassy. Immigration attorneys, if you hire one, typically charge $1,500 to $5,000 or more depending on how complex the case is.

If Your Spouse Enters on a CR1 Visa: Removing Conditions

A two-year conditional green card is not the end of the process. In the 90 days immediately before that card expires, you and your spouse must jointly file Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence.¹³ Work backward from the expiration date on the card.

If you miss the filing window, the conditional resident automatically loses permanent resident status on the two-year anniversary and becomes removable from the United States.¹⁴ Late filing may be excused for extraordinary circumstances beyond the applicant’s control, but that is not a standard to plan around.

The I-751 requires fresh evidence that the marriage is still genuine: updated joint financial records, a shared lease or mortgage, correspondence to both spouses at the same address, or evidence of children born to the marriage. If the marriage has ended by the time the window opens, the conditional resident can request a waiver of the joint filing requirement, though the waiver requires showing the marriage was entered in good faith.

After Your Spouse Arrives

Social Security Number

Your spouse can request a Social Security number as part of the immigrant visa process. If they checked the SSN box on the DS-260, the card usually arrives at your U.S. address within a few weeks.¹⁵ If it does not arrive within about six weeks, visit a local Social Security office with the green card and passport.

Taxes

If your spouse arrives mid-year without an SSN yet, you can still file a joint federal return by applying for an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number using IRS Form W-7. You can also elect to treat a nonresident spouse as a U.S. resident for the entire tax year by attaching a signed statement to your joint return.¹⁶ The election lets you file jointly and take the larger standard deduction, but it also makes your spouse’s worldwide income taxable in the United States for that year.

Foreign Bank Accounts

Once your spouse becomes a U.S. resident, any foreign bank accounts they hold individually or jointly with you may trigger reporting. If the combined value of all foreign financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any point during the calendar year, the account holder must file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) with FinCEN.¹⁷ This is the requirement couples most commonly overlook, and the civil penalties for non-filing run into thousands of dollars per violation, adjusted for inflation. If both spouses have signature authority over the same accounts, one can authorize the other to file on their behalf using FinCEN Form 114a.

1
Department of State. Immigrant Visa for a Spouse of a U.S. Citizen (IR1 or CR1)
2
eCFR. 8 CFR 204.2 – Petitions for Relatives, Widows and Widowers, and Abused Spouses and Children
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility Under Section 212(i) of the INA
4
Department of State. I-864 Affidavit of Support (FAQs)
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Instructions for Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, and Form I-130A, Supplemental Information for Spouse Beneficiary
6
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. G-1055 Fee Schedule
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Affidavit of Support
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-864 Instructions for Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA
9
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-864P HHS Poverty Guidelines for Affidavit of Support
10
U.S. Department of State. Fees for Visa Services
11
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Volume 8 Part B Chapter 3 – Applicability of Medical Examination and Vaccination Requirement
12
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccination Technical Instructions for Civil Surgeons
13
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. When to File Your Petition to Remove Conditions
14
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-751 Instructions for Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence
15
Social Security Administration. Social Security Numbers and Immigrant Visas – Information
16
Internal Revenue Service. Nonresident Spouse
17
Internal Revenue Service. Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR)