Methodology

Data sources

PetitionPace draws from three official public sources:

1. USCIS Form G-1055 (Fee Schedule) — the authoritative list of filing fees for all USCIS forms. We use the fee schedule that took effect April 1, 2024. We verify each fee against the form's individual page at uscis.gov/forms.
2. USCIS processing-times tool (egov.uscis.gov/processing-times) — USCIS publishes monthly processing-time ranges for each form type and service center. These are the ranges displayed in our estimator tools and form pages.
3. USCIS form-specific pages (uscis.gov/forms/[form-code]) — each form's purpose, instructions, and current filing instructions are sourced from the official USCIS form page.

Verification process

For each data point we publish:

1. We locate the primary official source (G-1055, USCIS form page, processing-times tool)
2. We record the figure and the source URL
3. We cross-check the fee against the form's individual USCIS page to confirm consistency
4. We set verified: true in our data model and record a reviewedDate

We set verified: false when:

• We cannot confirm the data point against a current official source
• The data is subject to active litigation, court orders, or regulatory uncertainty (e.g., DACA)
• Fee or form requirements may vary in ways that are difficult to summarize accurately for all applicants

The DATA-GATE

Our DATA-GATE is a build-time filter on our content publishing system. It works like this:

1. Every form in our database has a verified flag
2. At build time, we compute a list of processing-time pages whose data is not fully verified
3. Those pages receive a robots: noindex meta tag — search engines will not index them
4. Those pages are excluded from our sitemap — crawlers will not discover them automatically
5. Those pages always display a prominent link to the official USCIS tool for authoritative current data

Fee tables and form descriptions can be indexed when they reflect accurately the official fee schedule, even if processing times are not confirmed.

Processing-time ranges: what they represent

Processing times are inherently variable. The ranges we publish represent the window within which USCIS completed most cases at the time of our last data pull. They are:

• Not guarantees — your case may take significantly less or more time
• Not personalized — they reflect aggregate data across all cases for a form type at a service center
• Not current — processing times change monthly; we link to the live USCIS tool on every page
• Not the "normal processing time" cap — "outside normal processing time" is a USCIS concept defined by the case inquiry date, not simply by exceeding the high end of the range

How we handle fee changes

USCIS fee schedules change by rulemaking — a formal process with advance notice. When a new fee schedule takes effect, we:

1. Update all affected forms with the new fees
2. Update the reviewedDate field for each form
3. Update the site-wide notice referencing the effective date of the current fee schedule

The current data on PetitionPace reflects the USCIS fee schedule effective April 1, 2024.