Increase in UK's visa fees now in force

Businesses looking to bring foreign workers to the UK, or help those already here to settle in the country, face higher costs – there has been a rise in fees for submitting immigration applications. The new fees came in on October and cover a wide range of immigration routes popular with businesses, including applications for visit visas, sponsorship of foreign workers, and settlement. Most of the increases are between 10% and 15% but some fees have increase by more. On top of that there is a further planned increase to the cost of making immigration applications expected early next year when an increase to the immigration health surcharge takes effect. The surcharge is levied to help fund the cost of NHS treatment for foreign nationals with permission to work in the UK and is set to rise significantly from £624 to £1,035 per year.  We’ll speak to an immigration specialist about the impact of the various rises on employers.

In July, the government announced a 15% increase in the cost of most work and visit visas, and an increase of at least 20% in the cost of priority visas, study visas and certificates of sponsorship. The changes mean that the cost for a visit visa for less than six months is rising by £15 to £115, while the fee for applying for a student visa from outside the UK will rise by £127 to £490, to equal the amount charged for in-country applications. Whilst the increases have been very controversial, the government justifies them on the basis that the income from fees charged plays a vital role in the Home Office’s ability to run a sustainable immigration and nationality system.

So, let’s get reaction to these price hikes. Maria Gravelle is an immigration specialist and earlier she joined me by video-link from Edinburgh to discuss it: 

Maria Gravelle: “So it has been some time since the visa application fees were reviewed. So there has been a review and on 4 October the fees increased, certainly for Skilled Worker, Global Business Mobility visas, which are the visas that we're most commonly helping our clients with, there wasn't a fee increase of around 15%. That is not too uncommon, as I said, it had been a while since the increase them, but it does place an extra burden on employers and, potentially, also, their workers who are now having to meet these additional costs. I think what will be more impactful and certainly more detrimental will be the proposed increase to the immigration health surcharge which has been announced for 2024. That's looking at an increase of nearly I think 50%. So, you know, potentially doubling what the current immigration health surcharge is. We're still awaiting confirmation as to exactly when that's going to come into play but the figures that have been announced so far suggest that that that fee is about to double so that is going to be very impactful. Certainly for employers, and for our clients, the application fees and the immigration health surcharge, there is no obligation on a sponsor to pay those fees in the way that there is with the immigration skills charge. So, practically many employers do offer to pay those fees on behalf of their employees as part of the overall recruitment package, but now that these fees are going to increase it may be interesting for employers to take advice on, well, what do we do then if a person leaves their employment shortly after starting? How can we build in protection if we're going to be covering those fees into contracts of employment? Is there any way for us to share that cost with an applicant who, for example, has family members that are also going to be sponsored? These are all these are all solutions that we're advising our clients on at the moment.”

Joe Glavina: “You mentioned the increase to the health surcharge which we are expecting early next year. How does that work?” 

Maria Gravelle: “So the immigration health surcharge is a fee that pretty much all migrant workers will pay to access the NHS while they're in the UK. So it's payable per person, so it's paid by the worker, and it's also paid by each of their individual family members. The current rate for one applicant for five years is £3,120 for the immigration health surcharge and, as I say, that is to access the NHS while they are in the UK. When this was announced by the government the proposal was that increasing it would allow the government to plug salary gaps in other sectors - they mentioned the police and teachers and nurses for example - and I guess only the government will know what that increase will economically do, but certainly it's already very high and many migrant workers who do use the NHS are effectively paying for it through the immigration health surcharge. So that is the purpose behind it.”

On the timing of the immigration health surcharge, it will come into force on the later of 16 January 2024 or the twenty-first day after the day on which it is made. The secondary legislation - Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2023 - needs to be approved by both Houses of Parliament and that’s the timescale laid down for it.

Meanwhile, the other significant piece of immigration news is the publication of the review carried out by the Migration Advisory Committee on the UK’s Shortage Occupation List is working out. The MAC’s view is the list is very much a temporary fix and that a long term strategy is needed to help plug skills gaps in the market and they recommend the list should be abolished - a point they make very clearly in their report and in a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick. Last week Maria talked to this programme about what that could mean for employers. That’s ‘MAC review recommends abolishing Shortage Occupation List’ and we’ve put a link to in the transcript of this programme.

LINKS
- Link to Home Office table of Home Office immigration and nationality fees: 4 October 2023
- Link to HRNews programme: ‘MAC review recommends abolishing Shortage Occupation List’