UK Visa Fees 2026: Complete Guide to Visit, Work, Study & Family Costs

UK entry clearance fees rose on 8 April 2026. This page sets out what each route costs from outside the UK, what employers pay on top, and where the health surcharge lands. Every figure is per applicant, and the surcharge is often larger than the visa fee itself.

Entry Clearance Fees

UK Visa Fees From Outside the UK in 2026

What This Covers

Entry clearance fees apply when you apply from outside the UK. They are generally lower than the equivalent in-country application, which is covered on our page on Home Office fees from inside the UK. Dependants apply and pay separately at the same rate on most routes.

Visit Fees

Visit and Transit From 8 April 2026

The Standard Visa Fee

When people ask for the standard visa fee for the UK, they usually mean the six-month Standard Visitor visa: £135. The two-year visit visa is £506, five years £903 and ten years £1,128 — the same visa each time, priced by validity, with each stay still capped at six months.

Visitors pay no health surcharge. Our pages on visitor fees in detail, the standard visitor route and long-term visit visas cover which option works out cheapest, and our page on the ETA scheme covers who needs one instead of a visa.

Study Fees

A Student or Child Student application costs £558 from outside the UK, up from £524. Dependants pay the same. Add the health surcharge at £776 a year for the whole period of permission, which for a three-year degree is a substantially larger figure than the visa fee.

Our pages on the student route, short-term study and the Graduate route cover what each involves. The Graduate route is applied for from inside the UK, so it sits on the in-country page.

Work Fees

Work Routes From 8 April 2026

The three-year line doubles the Skilled Worker fee, and it is set by the length of the certificate of sponsorship rather than by anything you choose. Where the role allows either, raise it with the employer before the certificate is assigned. See our pages on Skilled Worker, Health and Care Worker and work visa fees.

Three routes held their fees flat: Global Talent at both stages and the High Potential Individual route. Others are covered on our pages on the Innovator Founder route, the Scale-up route and temporary work routes.

Where the Surcharge Overtakes the Fee

On study and work routes the surcharge is usually the bigger number. A student granted three years pays £558 for the visa and £2,328 in surcharge. A Skilled Worker granted three years pays £819 and £3,105. Reading only the headline fee understates the real cost by three or four times.

It also means the length of permission you request is a spending decision. A shorter grant costs less upfront but means paying a second application fee sooner, so the arithmetic depends on how long you expect to stay rather than on which single figure looks smaller.

What the Employer Pays

The certificate fee has risen sharply in recent years and is now a material part of the cost of hiring from abroad. Sponsors should budget the licence, the certificate, the skills charge and the applicant's own fee and surcharge together, because in practice the employer often meets several of them.

Family Fees

Family Routes From 8 April 2026

See our pages on the spouse route and its financial requirement, the fiancé route, the parent route, adult dependent relatives, dependants generally and the BN(O) route.

The Health Surcharge

£1,035 a year at the standard rate. £776 a year for students, their dependants, Youth Mobility Scheme holders and anyone under 18 at the date of application. It is charged for the whole period of permission and paid upfront with the application, so it dominates the total on longer grants.

The surcharge is refundable where permission is refused, withdrawn, or granted for less than you paid for — unlike the application fee, which is not. Our page on the health surcharge covers exemptions and how part years are calculated, and the GOV UK surcharge pages carry the rates.

Priority Services

Priority costs £500 outside the UK for a five working day target. Super priority costs £1,000 for a next working day target. Both are charged per applicant, and both buy queue position rather than a better decision — see our page on priority services and the GOV UK faster decision pages.

Priority Is Not Available Everywhere

The faster services depend on the country you apply in and the route you apply on, and they are withdrawn during periods of high demand. Where an application is taken out of the fast queue for verification or an interview, it reverts to standard handling and the fee is not returned, because the service was made available.

Check what is offered at your own visa application centre before building a timetable around it. Where priority is unavailable, the only lever left is applying earlier — GOV.UK allows most applications to be made up to three months before travel.

Fee Waivers

Waivers are narrow and route-specific. They exist principally where refusing an application would breach human rights and the applicant cannot afford the fee — most often on family and private life routes made from inside the UK. They are not available as a general hardship provision on work or study routes.

Where a waiver applies, it can cover the fee and the health surcharge. The evidential threshold is real: income, outgoings, savings and accommodation all have to be documented. Our page on human rights applications covers the context in which waivers arise.

What Changed on 8 April 2026

Why the Figures Are What They Are

Immigration fees are set by regulations rather than by cost recovery. Parliament permits fees to be charged above the administrative cost of processing, taking into account wider benefits and the funding of the system, which is why settlement and nationality applications cost multiples of what the paperwork consumes.

The practical consequence for applicants is that arguing a fee is disproportionate to the work involved goes nowhere. The figure is a policy decision, revised by statutory instrument, usually in the spring. Planning around the annual uplift is more useful than expecting one.

What the Fee Actually Buys

A decision, and nothing else. It is not refunded on refusal, and a grant shorter than the one applied for produces no partial refund. Priority buys speed rather than quality. The one element that does return money is the health surcharge, which is refundable where permission is refused or shortened.

That asymmetry should shape where the money goes. Spending on evidence — properly formatted statements, a clear employer letter, certified translations — protects the fee. Spending on speed protects only the timetable. Our pages on supporting documents and refusal grounds cover what caseworkers are actually looking for.

Working Out Your Total

A worked example: a Skilled Worker granted three years pays £819 plus £3,105 in surcharge, before the employer's £525 certificate and skills charge. A partner applying on the five-year route pays £2,064 plus surcharge for the grant. Our pages on the application form and processing after biometrics cover what happens once you have paid.

Sources: the Home Office immigration and nationality fees table effective 8 April 2026, and the GOV UK health surcharge rates. Figures verified 22 August 2026.

Frequently Asked

Visa Fee Questions