The amount of time an E-2 visa can be granted for and the cost of issuing said visa varies by country and depends on the agreement (the legal term is reciprocity) between the applicant’s country and the United States. Some countries, such as Egypt and Bangladesh, have reciprocity periods of as little as 3 months while other countries allow applicants to get an E-2 visa for up to 5 years. For more information, please click here.
Nationals of certain countries will be required to pay an additional reciprocity fee. The reciprocity fee is a different fee than the visa fee – the reciprocity fee is based on reciprocity (if foreign government imposes a visa fee for certain visa for U.S. citizen, the U.S. will also impose a visa fee on the foreign nationals). That’s why some countries don’t have any reciprocity fees and some countries have reciprocity fees for only certain visa categories. For more information, please click here.
The previous visa reciprocity for Mexican nationals is 12 months with a visa reciprocity fee of $42. Mexicans can only receive E-2 visas on a 1-year basis before renewal. However, the Department of State have now introduced a 48-month visa reciprocity for Mexican E-2 applications if they choose to pay a higher reciprocity fee of $296. Reciprocity changing without warning is not uncommon, E-2 reciprocity for French nationals was decreased from 60 months to 15 months in August 2019. Visa validity for Pakistan nationals was also updated in March 2019. Visa fees for Australian nationals were also drastically increased in December 2019.
