UK Immigration Visa Fees, Health Surcharge To Increase ‘Significantly’: Here’s How Much Indians Have To Pay

The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), which applies to long-term migrants to the UK including a discounted rate for students, starts from around Great Britain Pound, GBP 470 for a year and rises to thousands of pounds for multiple-year visa applications.

UK Visa Latest Update:  The fees and health surcharge paid towards the UK’s state-funded National Health Service (NHS) by visa applicants from around the world, including Indians, are set to rise “significantly” to meet the country’s public sector wage increase. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has confirmed a hike between 5 to 7 percent across the public sector. This would include teachers, police, junior doctors and others working in the public sector.

Why is PM Sunak prioritising the hike?

If we’re going to prioritise paying public sector workers more, that money has to come from somewhere else because I’m not prepared to put up people’s taxes and I don’t think it would be responsible or right to borrow more because that would just make inflation worse,” PM Sunak told reporters at a Downing Street press conference.

“So, what we have done are two things to find this money. The first is, 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.

“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 added.

How much Indians have to pay now?

The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), which applies to long-term migrants to the UK including a discounted rate for students, starts from around Great Britain Pound, GBP 470 for a year and rises to thousands of pounds for multiple-year visa applications.

As per FREETH, the government is likely to hike work visa fees by 15%. All other visa fees will rise by at least 20%.

Accordingly, 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.

The immigration health surcharge, introduced in 2015 at £200 per application, has seen significant increases. It doubled to £400 in 2018 and further rose to £624 in 2020 for adults (£470 for discounted applicants). The government has now announced a substantial hike, with the surcharge increasing to £1,035 per person per year and the discounted rate rising to £776, FREETH also pointed out

When will the new visa hike expected?

The full details of which categories of visas will face hikes and when the new higher rates come into force are expected to be laid out by the UK Home Office in the coming months.

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