U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on October 30 that petitioners that Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative may now be filed online.   This form is used by US citizens and permanent residents to petition for an immigrant visa (ultimately, permanent residence) for qualifying relatives.

USCIS has engaged in a multi-year, multi-million-dollar project to bring more of its forms online.  Almost 15 years into the project, USCIS now boasts eight forms available for online filing (for context, the Forms page of the USCIS web site lists 46 forms at this writing).

Five of the eight forms that may be filed online impact some areas of the naturalization process or applications for proof of existing US citizenship.  The other online-fileable forms include the I-90 used to replace a lost, stolen or expired green card, and the I-539 used to extend, amend, or change certain types of nonimmigrant status (but not most types of status permitting employment, which use the I-129 form which has yet to become online-fileable).

The I-130 is likely the most used form to go online by far.  To date, traditional paper filing remains available for all of the online forms and our office has yet to be sufficiently satisfied that the online system is function that we would recommend a transition from paper filing.