UK visa fees hiked: Here’s how much you will pay now for Student, Tourist visa

UK Student, Tourist Visa fee hike

The UK Home Office had earlier indicated a 15% increase in the cost of most work and tourist visas to UK, and an increase of at least 20% in the cost of priority visas, study visas and certificates of sponsorship in UK.

The hike in fees applies to the following visa categories

-Health and care visa

-Applications to register and naturalize as a British citizen

-Fees for up to six months, two, five and 10-year visit visas

The hike also applies for the majority of fees for entry clearance and certain applications for leave to remain in the UK, including 

-Those for work and study

-Fees for indefinite leave to enter and indefinite leave to remain

-Fees in relation to certificates of sponsorship and confirmation of acceptance for studies

UK Student Visa Fees: How much you will pay now

UK Home office had informed fee for applying for a UK Student Visa from outside the UK will rise to ₹50,428 (£ 490)

UK Tourist Visa Fees: How much you will pay now

The UK Home office has informed that the changes mean the cost for a UK Visit Visa for less than six months will rise to ₹11,835 (£ 115)

UK work Visa Fees: How much will you pay now

As pointed out by FREETH in an earlier article of Mint, if you are immigrating to the UK with a skilled worker visa (where a certificate of sponsorship has been issued for three years or less), you will have to pay £718 ( ₹77,147). Currently the fees for this visa category is £625.

Why UK is implementing a visa fee hike?

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had announced in July that the fees and health surcharge paid towards the UK’s state-funded National Health Service (NHS) by visa applicants are set to rise “significantly” to meet the country’s public sector wage increase.

“We are going to increase the charges that we have for migrants who are coming to this country when they apply for visas and indeed something called the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS,” he said at the time.

“All of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over £ 1 billion, so across the board visa application fees are going to go up significantly and similarly for the IHS,” he said.

Sunak justified that the move is “entirely right” as these fees have not been increased recently. And cited that the UK visa fee hike is appropriate given that the costs have risen since the last hike.

Updated: 17 Sep 2023, 09:44 PM IST