UK Student Visa: Fees, Timelines and How Long You Can Stay

The UK Student visa costs £558 to apply for from outside the UK, and the same £558 to extend or switch to from inside the UK. You will usually get a decision within 3 weeks if you apply from outside the UK, or within 8 weeks if you apply from inside the UK. How long you can stay depends on your course level and length: up to 5 years for a degree-level course if you are 18 or over, and up to 2 years for a course below degree level. You must also pay the immigration health surcharge as part of your application, and the amount depends on how long your visa lasts. These figures come from the official GOV.UK Student visa guidance and are current as of the page’s retrieval date.

What the Student visa is and who can apply

The Student visa has replaced the Tier 4 (General) student visa. You can apply if you are 16 or over and you have been offered a place on a course by a licensed student sponsor, have enough money to support yourself and pay for your course, can speak, read, write and understand English, and have consent from your parents if you are 16 or 17. If you are 16 or 17 and want to study at an independent school in the UK, you may be eligible for a Child Student visa instead.

The amount of money you need to support yourself varies depending on your circumstances. The GOV.UK guidance does not state a fixed figure on the overview page, so you must check the specific evidence guidance for your situation. If you have been in the UK with a valid visa for less than 12 months and you are applying to extend, you will need to prove you have enough money to support yourself.

How long the visa lasts

How long you can stay on a Student visa depends on the length of your course and what study you have already completed in the UK. The GOV.UK guidance gives the following general limits:

Your situation	How long you can usually stay
18 or over, course at degree level	Up to 5 years
18 or over, course below degree level	Up to 2 years
16 or 17, any course	Check the guidance for your exact length

The guidance says to read the full guidance to find out exactly how long you can stay, because your individual circumstances may affect the period granted. The visa is granted for the length of your course, subject to these caps.

When you can apply and when you can travel

If you are applying from outside the UK, the earliest you can apply is 6 months before your course starts. If you are applying from inside the UK, the earliest you can apply is 3 months before your course starts. You must apply before your current visa expires, and your new course must begin within 28 days of your current visa expiring.

You can arrive in the UK before your course starts, but the permitted window depends on your course length:

• Up to 1 week before, if your course lasts 6 months or less.
• Up to 1 month before, if your course lasts more than 6 months.

You must not travel to the UK before the start date given on your visa, no matter when your course starts. The visa start date is the controlling date, not your course start date.

Fees and the healthcare surcharge

The application fee is £558. This applies whether you are applying from outside the UK, extending from inside the UK, or switching to a Student visa from another visa inside the UK. You must pay the visa fee for each person that joins you, so if you are bringing dependants, each of them has their own fee.

You will also have to pay the healthcare surcharge as part of your application. How much you pay depends on how long your visa lasts. The GOV.UK overview page does not give a specific surcharge amount, so you must check the current surcharge rate on the official healthcare surcharge page before you apply. The surcharge is separate from the £558 visa fee and is paid at the same time as your application.

How long the decision takes

The usual decision times are:

Where you apply from	Usual decision time
Outside the UK	3 weeks
Inside the UK (extend or switch)	8 weeks

You may be able to pay to get a faster decision. You will be told if you can when you apply. If your application is complex, it can take longer. The GOV.UK extension guidance lists reasons an application may be delayed, including verifying supporting documents, attending an interview, or your personal circumstances such as a criminal conviction.

If you apply to extend from inside the UK, you can stay in the UK until you get your decision. If you applied for an administrative review because your application was refused, you can also stay until you get the review decision. You must not travel outside of the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man until you get a decision, because your application will be withdrawn if you do.

Extending your Student visa

You may be able to extend your Student visa to stay longer and continue your course or study a new course. This includes if you currently have a Tier 4 (General) student visa. To extend, you must be in the UK on a Student visa or a Tier 4 (General) student visa, have an unconditional offer of a place on a course with a licensed student sponsor shown by your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS), and show that your studies are at a higher academic level than your current course.

The academic progress requirement has exceptions. You do not need to show your studies are at a higher level if you are resitting exams or repeating modules, applying for the first time to a new institution to complete a course you started at an institution that lost its student sponsorship licence, applying after working as a student union sabbatical officer to complete a qualification you started under your last Student visa, completing a PhD or other doctorate that you started under your last Student visa, continuing your medical, dentistry or medical science degree after completing an intercalated course, or applying to extend your stay to complete your studies because you have done or want to do a work placement or study abroad programme.

Your new course can be at a higher academic level than your current course, at the same level and related to your previous course or career aspirations if it is degree level or above at a Higher Education Provider (HEP), or intercalated to a medicine, dentistry or medical science course you started studying under your Student visa.

When extending, the earliest you can apply is 3 months before your course starts. You must apply before your current visa expires, and your new course must begin within 28 days of your current visa expiring. You must also apply within 6 months of getting your CAS. The fee to extend is £558 per person, plus the healthcare surcharge. Your partner or children will need to apply separately to extend their visa; they can apply at the same time as you or at any time before their current visa expires.

Switching to a Graduate visa

After successfully completing your course, you may be able to switch to a Graduate visa. The length of stay it allows depends on when you apply:

When you apply	How long you can stay
On or before 31 December 2026	2 years
On or after 1 January 2027	18 months
Completed a PhD or other doctoral qualification	3 years

The Graduate visa is a separate route from the Student visa. The GOV.UK guidance does not state a separate fee for the Graduate visa on these pages, so you must check the Graduate visa guidance for current fees and requirements.

What you can and cannot do on a Student visa

You can study and work as a student union sabbatical officer. You may be able to work, but how much depends on what you are studying and whether you are working in or out of term-time. You cannot claim public funds (benefits) and pensions, work in certain jobs such as a professional sportsperson or sports coach, be self-employed, or study at an academy or a local authority-funded school (also known as a maintained school).

If your application is successful, you will be told what you can and cannot do on your Student visa. Your visa conditions are individual to your grant, so you should read your decision letter carefully.

What to do next and what to verify

Before you apply, check the official GOV.UK Student visa pages for the current fee, the healthcare surcharge rate, and the specific financial evidence amount that applies to your circumstances. The overview page states the fee is £558, but it does not give the surcharge amount or the maintenance funds figure, so you must check those on the relevant guidance pages.

If you are applying to extend, confirm your course meets the academic progress requirement or that an exception applies to you. If you are applying from outside the UK, check whether you need a tuberculosis (TB) test and whether you need an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) certificate if you are doing a masters degree or above. The GOV.UK step-by-step guide lists these as part of the evidence preparation stage.

If you break the conditions of your visa, you may not be able to come to the UK again. The GOV.UK guidance states this explicitly, so it is worth taking the conditions seriously before you travel or work.