United Kingdom to hike visa fees for visitors, students from October 4

London : The British government has announced that a proposed hike in visa fees will become effective from October 4, when a visit visa for less than six months will cost GBP (British pound sterling) 15 more and student visas will be GBP 127 more expensive for travellers from around the world, including Indians. Following legislation tabled in Parliament on Friday, the UK Home Office said the changes mean that the cost for a visit visa for less than six months will rise to GBP 115 and the fee for applying for a student visa from outside the UK will rise to GBP 490 – to equal the amount charged for in-country applications. It comes after 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 GBP 1 billion, so across the board visa application fees are going to go up significantly and similarly for the IHS,” he said. The Home Office indicated a 15 per cent increase in the cost of most work and visit visas, and an increase of at least 20 per cent in the cost of priority visas, study visas and certificates of sponsorship. “Income from fees charged plays a vital role in the Home Office’s ability to run a sustainable immigration and nationality system.