OPT Fee Benchmark
The OPT and STEM OPT fees as listed on 297 official university web pages. Submit corrections or additions .
Every school shown, by how it charges for OPT and the STEM OPT extension.
Share charging a separate fee, of verified schools in each group.
Share charging a separate fee, by institution type. Select a bar to filter.
Each dot is one school's one-time fee, paid when the I-20 is issued, grouped to the nearest $25. The dashed line is the federal USCIS filing fee.
Schools that publish both one-time fees. Larger circles hold more schools at the same pair.
Share charging a separate fee and the median published fees.
Share charging, of verified schools in each census region. Select a bar to filter.
Share charging, of verified schools in each state. Select a state to filter.
One-time fees at the 25 largest U.S. hosts of international students (IIE Open Doors 2025), in rank order.
Dated fee changes found on official pages, January 2025 to December 2026.
| Date | Institution | Change |
|---|
Mandatory fee charged to enrolled F-1 and J-1 students each term, shown per academic year.
Scholar and employment fees run far higher than student fees
Range and examples by fee type, on a log scale. Reference data, not affected by filters.
Calculate revenue from a proposed fee
Both fees are charged once per request, so revenue follows the number of OPT and STEM OPT I-20s issued each year. Peer comparisons use the schools that match your filters.
| Scenario | OPT fee (once) | STEM OPT fee (once) | Annual revenue after card fees |
|---|
Select a row to see the school's detail. Select a column heading to sort.
This information is based on publicly available data and may be inaccurate. If you find something inaccurate, submit a correction.
Only institutions with a verified finding are shown. "No fee found" means official pages list only the USCIS fee, not that the service is free.
OPT and STEM OPT fees are one-time per request, never yearly. Recurring international fees are shown per academic year. Language-only schools are excluded.
Sources: university international office and bursar pages, IIE Open Doors 2025, U.S. News 2027. Corrections: moroni.flake@english3.com.