We’re in the business of breaking even.”. The USCIS is supposed to do a fee study every two years and propose fee levels proportional to the costs they’re incurring; those fees then get set through federal rulemaking. In 1997, the fee for a naturalization application was $95, less than 15% of what it is today. The most recent jump came in 2007, when the USCIS proposed increasing the naturalization application fee about 85%, from $320 to the current rate.