Pay the $185 MRV Fee From Nigeria (2026 Guide)

The MRV fee for a US visitor visa (B1/B2) and most non-immigrant categories is $185 — about ₦285,000 at the July 2026 bank-card rate of roughly ₦1,540/$. You pay it on ustraveldocs.com (AVITS) after your DS-160, or your SEVIS I-901 if you’re a student. If you searched how to pay US visa fee from Nigeria, here is the part almost nobody states plainly: the MRV is the one US consular fee you can settle in naira, but only one way — cash across the counter at a designated bank branch, against a payment slip generated in your ustraveldocs profile. Online, the portal charges in USD, and that is where the visa fee payment step traps most Nigerian applicants: a plain naira card declines. This guide covers both payment options plus what travel.state.gov skips — the clearing lag before slots appear, the receipt’s validity window, and whether a refused applicant gets the $185 back. If a relative abroad will settle it for you, read can someone abroad pay my visa fee first.

How much the MRV fee is in ₦ (2026)

In short: the MRV fee for a B1/B2 visitor visa is $185, roughly ₦285,000 at the ₦1,540/$ bank-card rate in July 2026 — check your bank’s live rate, it moves daily. Source: travel.state.gov, “Fees for Visa Services”.

The DS-160 form is free — the charge is the MRV fee. For a B1/B2 visitor visa, that’s MRV fee $185. A “dollar card for DS-160” search really means a card for the MRV fee, not the form itself. Petition-based visas and the K fiancé(e) category cost more; the State Department updates these figures periodically.

Source: travel.state.gov, “Fees for Visa Services”, July 2026; ₦ column computed at this site’s ₦1,540/$ July 2026 bank-card rate.

Treat that ₦ column as a card-payment estimate. If you pay cash at a bank branch, the counter charges the naira equivalent set by the consular exchange rate for that day, which is not your bank’s card rate and not the parallel rate. The figure printed on your payment slip is the one that counts.

How to pay the MRV fee from Nigeria: payment steps

In short: create a profile on ustraveldocs.com (AVITS), generate a payment reference, then settle it either as cash in naira at a designated bank branch or with a dollar card online — a plain naira card declines at the online USD step. Source: ustraveldocs.com payment instructions.

1. Finish your DS-160 (or SEVIS I-901 first, if you’re a student) and note your application ID.
2. Create a profile on ustraveldocs.com (AVITS) for the Nigeria post, or log into your existing one.
3. Generate your payment reference — select “Pay Visa Application Fee” and the portal issues a reference number and a bank payment slip, listing the designated banks and the naira amount due.
4. Pay in naira at a designated bank branch, or online with a working dollar card — a naira card won’t clear the online USD charge.
5. Wait for the receipt — ~24h for a card, ~2 business days for a bank branch deposit.
6. Schedule your interview — enter the receipt number to unlock the appointment calendar and book your slot.
7. Save or print the receipt — you present it again on interview day.

Paying from Nigeria: the branch route takes naira; the online route does not, because the portal won’t convert Naira to USD for you. Try a dollar card first if you want speed, and fall back to a domiciliary account or someone abroad — the full decision tree.

The branch counter is the naira exception, and it is worth using when your cards keep failing: you pay in bank branch with the slip in hand, cash across the counter, and the deposit clears in about 2 business days. The trade-off is speed — a dollar card confirms in roughly a day. Which GTBank/Chipper/Grey card actually clears this portal is a live question, so our dollar-card comparison ranks the cards, including which virtual dollar card options hold up at a consular step. The DS-160 guide covers the form itself, and the appointment guide covers what happens once the calendar opens.

Where your receipt number comes from — and the clearing lag before slots appear

In short: a successful payment returns a receipt number — you can’t book without it, and it is non-refundable and non-transferable. A card clears in ~24 hours, a bank deposit in ~2 business days; a longer wait after that is usually slot scarcity, not a stuck payment. Source: ustraveldocs.com; r/usvisascheduling reports, 2025–2026.

The number on your fee receipt / CGI reference unlocks the “book an appointment” button — nothing else does. No receipt inside those windows means the payment genuinely hasn’t cleared yet.

Two words on that receipt decide how much a mistake costs you. It is non-refundable: once paid, the money is spent whether or not you ever attend. And it is non-transferable: it belongs to the person named on the payment and cannot be handed to a sibling, sold on, or moved to another applicant’s booking. That second word is what makes “buy a paid slot from an agent” a losing trade — the receipt cannot legally travel to you, so what you are really buying is someone’s promise, which is exactly the shape of the common visa scams run on Nigerian applicants.

Most “I paid but see no slots” reports describe something else, though. A Lagos applicant on r/usvisascheduling wrote: “I have paid my visa fees for a month now and checking the site for slots. Nothing… It’s annoying.” The receipt had already cleared; the post simply had no open dates. A separate applicant hit “access temporarily restricted” on AVITS right after paying — a login issue, not a fee problem. Separate the two questions before you panic: has the receipt appeared, and are there any slots at all — a demand-backlog question unrelated to your $185.

How long the MRV fee receipt stays valid before it expires

In short: your MRV receipt is valid for one year from the payment date, and you must interview at the same post where you bought it. Let the year pass unused and the $185 is gone. Source: travel.state.gov / ustraveldocs.com fee-validity guidance.

Paying starts a one-year clock. Book and attend inside that window and the receipt does its job. Miss it (slots dried up, plans changed, you forgot) and it expires with nothing to show: no extension, no partial credit, and — because it is non-transferable — no passing it to a relative who still has time. An unused, expired receipt is a straight $185 loss, about ₦285,000 at July 2026 rates. Don’t pay months early “just to have it done.”

Is the MRV fee refundable?

In short: almost never. A 214(b) refusal does not refund the $185 — you pay a fresh fee to reapply. A 221(g) administrative-processing case can sometimes reuse the same receipt. Source: travel.state.gov refusal and fee-reuse guidance.

The fee buys a chance to be considered, not a visa. A 214(b) refusal (the officer wasn’t convinced you’d return to Nigeria) does not refund the $185; reapplying needs a fresh fee. The one real exception: a 221(g) administrative-processing case can sometimes reuse the same receipt inside its one-year window. Confirm your exact status with the consulate — don’t assume either way. That’s the whole of how to pay US visa fee from Nigeria without losing the $185 to a technicality.

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