Bangladesh is among 50 countries whose citizens can now be required to put up as much as $20,000 before receiving a United States visitor visa, as the Trump administration turns an experimental immigration measure into a permanent part of the American visa system.
For Bangladeshi travelers, however, the change is less sudden than it may appear. Bangladesh was added to the United States visa-bond list on January 21, 2026, meaning Bangladeshis who qualified for B-1 business or B-2 tourist visas have already been subject to the bond requirement for more than six months.
On August 3, the pilot programme just became permanent and potentially more expensive.
The practical consequence is significant.
A Bangladeshi applying for a B-1, B-2 or combined B-1/B-2 visa will still go through the familiar process of completing the application, paying the nonrefundable visa application fee, undergoing screening and appearing for an interview when required. The standard application fee for a visitor visa is currently $185.
But being found eligible for the visa may no longer be enough.
If the consular officer determines that the applicant otherwise qualifies, the bond requirement enters the process. Under the pilot system, applicants from Bangladesh and other designated countries were required to post $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, with the amount determined during the visa process.
Under the permanent programme, the $5,000 option is being eliminated and the ceiling raised to $20,000. In effect, the bond is collateral.
It is not another ordinary visa fee, and the US government is not supposed to keep the money if the traveler follows the rules. Instead, the money is meant to give the traveler a powerful financial reason to leave the United States on time.
That distinction matters. The $185 visa application fee is nonrefundable regardless of whether a visa is granted. The bond, potentially tens of thousands of dollars, is refundable if its conditions are satisfied.
For a Bangladeshi family planning a holiday, a parent traveling to see children in America, or an executive attending meetings, the financial implications could nevertheless be formidable.
Someone ordered to post a $20,000 bond would have to temporarily tie up an amount equivalent to roughly 24 lakh taka at an exchange rate of 120 taka to the dollar.
The bond can be paid by the applicant or by someone else — a relative, friend or business associate, including someone outside Bangladesh. But whoever is listed as the person posting the bond is also the person to whom the money will eventually be returned.
The payment is made in US dollars, meaning the payer also bears any exchange-rate risk between the time the money is deposited and refunded.
Applicants are specifically warned not to send the money on their own.
A consular officer must first instruct the applicant to post the bond. The applicant then completes the Department of Homeland Security's Form I-352 and receives instructions to make the payment through the US Treasury's Pay.gov system.
The State Department warns that applicants should not use third-party websites and that paying money without being directed to do so does not guarantee a visa.
That last point is crucial: a bond is not a way to buy an American visa.
It comes into play only after the government has assessed the applicant under normal visa rules. Paying it does not erase other grounds for refusal, and possession of a visa itself does not guarantee admission into the United States.
A visa permits a traveler to arrive at an American port of entry and ask to be admitted; the final decision belongs to US border authorities.
There is another restriction that Bangladeshi travelers will have to watch closely. Bonded travelers are required to enter and leave the United States through approved ports of entry.
Current State Department guidance allows commercial airports, including Customs and Border Protection preclearance facilities, but excludes entry or departure by charter aircraft, general aviation, land borders or seaports.
The money is generally returned when the Department of Homeland Security records that the traveler left the United States on or before the end of the authorized stay. It is also returned if the traveler never uses the visa before it expires, or travels to an American port of entry but is refused admission.
The government can move to keep the bond if the traveler overstays or otherwise breaches its conditions. The current rules identify several circumstances that can trigger a breach review, including remaining beyond the authorized period and attempting to adjust out of nonimmigrant status, including by seeking asylum.
That makes another distinction particularly important for Bangladeshi travelers: the expiration date printed on a visa is not necessarily the date by which someone must leave the United States.
The visa's validity determines when it may be used to seek entry. The period a traveler is actually allowed to remain is determined by US border authorities upon admission. The State Department explicitly warns that visa validity and authorized length of stay are different things.
For Bangladeshis, visitor visas are already unusually restrictive compared with those issued to nationals of many countries. The State Department's current reciprocity schedule provides Bangladeshi B-1, B-2 and B-1/B-2 visa holders with a visa valid for three months and one entry.
There is currently no additional reciprocity issuance fee for those categories.
Until Bangladesh was brought into the bond programme in January, an otherwise eligible Bangladeshi visitor generally did not have to place thousands of dollars with the US government as financial security for leaving the country.
The applicant paid the normal application fee, demonstrated eligibility for temporary travel and, if approved, received the visa. The bond changes the economics of that process.
It effectively separates two questions that previously sat largely inside the consular assessment: Does the United States believe this person qualifies to visit? And how confident is it that the visitor will leave?
Traditionally, consular officers dealt with the second question largely by assessing an applicant's circumstances — employment, finances, family connections, purpose of travel and other evidence suggesting that the trip was genuinely temporary.
The bond adds a financial enforcement mechanism after the eligibility determination: the government can now effectively say, you may qualify to visit, but money must be placed at risk to ensure that you return.
The legal idea itself is not new.
American immigration law has long given consular officers authority to require what is formally known as a Maintenance of Status and Departure Bond. But for decades the State Department generally discouraged officers from using that authority.
Its own guidance said bonds should “rarely be used,” in part because administering and discharging them was cumbersome. The first Trump administration tried to change that.
In November 2020, shortly before President Trump left office, the State Department announced a six-month visa-bond pilot programme scheduled to run from Dec. 24, 2020, through June 24, 2021. It targeted certain B-1/B-2 applicants from countries whose overstay rates were 10% or higher and contemplated bonds at several levels.
But the experiment collided with the pandemic. International travel had collapsed, and the State Department later acknowledged that the 2020 pilot was never implemented in a way that produced usable data because of the worldwide reduction in travel caused by Covid-19.
Trump's return to the White House revived the idea on a much larger scale.
In August 2025, the State Department launched a new 12-month pilot. This time the government identified several reasons a country's nationals could become subject to bonds: high B-1/B-2 overstay rates, deficiencies in screening and vetting information, or certain citizenship-by-investment programmes that grant nationality without a meaningful residence requirement.
The pilot allowed consular officers to require bonds of as much as $15,000.
The programme gradually expanded. Malawi and Zambia were among the first countries covered in August 2025. Bangladesh was added effective January 21, 2026. By May, the State Department's published list contained 50 countries, 30 of them African.
The administration now says the experiment worked.
According to figures cited by the State Department and reported by The Associated Press, roughly 45,500 visitors from the countries eventually covered by the programme overstayed their visas in 2024. During the first 10 months of the pilot, fewer than 50 bonded travelers from the affected countries overstayed, according to the department.
But there is another number that complicates that success.
The State Department originally expected roughly 2,000 applicants to be subject to bonds during the first year. Instead, about 20,000 were affected. Nearly half chose not to post the money. Visa issuance to citizens of the affected countries fell by 83%, according to figures reported by The Associated Press.
That suggests the bond may accomplish two things at once.
It discourages people who receive visas from overstaying. But it also discourages people from traveling to the United States at all.
For the Trump administration, that may not be an unintended consequence. The permanent rule is part of a broader immigration strategy that has sought to make entry requirements more stringent, expand screening and place more responsibility on foreign governments and individual travelers to demonstrate compliance with American immigration rules.
Reuters reported that the administration argues the bond system provides an enforceable incentive for temporary visitors to depart as required.
Critics see something different: a financial barrier that falls most heavily on people from poorer countries.
A $10,000 or $20,000 refundable deposit is fundamentally different for a wealthy traveler with substantial liquid assets than for a middle-class family whose savings may be tied up in a home, business or education. Two applicants may pose exactly the same immigration risk yet experience the same bond very differently.
That is particularly relevant to Bangladesh, where a $20,000 deposit can represent years of household savings.
It also means the practical cost of an American trip can become disconnected from its actual price. A Bangladeshi businessman flying to New York for four days of meetings might spend a fraction of $20,000 on airfare and accommodation but still need access to that amount merely to obtain the visa necessary to make the trip.
The bond does not currently apply across the American visa system. The permanent programme is aimed at B-1 and B-2 visitor visas; it should not be confused with the separate rules governing F-1 student visas, immigrant visas or employment categories.
Nor does the new rule mean that every Bangladeshi who already possesses a valid US visa must suddenly send $20,000 to Washington. The mechanism is tied to the issuance of covered visitor visas to applicants subject to the programme.
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