Nigerians, Others To Pay More As UK Visa Fee Increases

UK Visa Fee has increased.

Newsone reports that the British government says it would increase visa applications and health surcharge paid by immigrants as part of its strategy to meet its public sector wage increase.

This online news platform understands that the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who made this announcement on Thursday, July 14, 2023, during a Downing Street press conference, said the surcharge paid for the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) by visa applicants from around the world will also “increase significantly”.

The  British Prime Minister said the increase would help bridge the gap after the county approved a pay increase in public sector wages, adding that the increment in visa applications and NHS surcharge had become imperative since the fees have not been increased recently.

According to him, “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

“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.

“All of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over £1 billion. So, across the board visa application fees are going to go up significantly and similarly for the IHS,” he said after announcing a wage increase.”

Newsone Nigeria understands that the surcharge – paid as part of a visa application – will go up to £1,035, while the cost of work and visit visas will go up by 15 percent.

The cost of study visas, certificates of sponsorship, wide entry clearance, leave-to-remain and priority visas, and others, will rise by at least 20 percent.

More than one million public sector workers, including teachers, police, and doctors, have been offered pay rises of between 5 percent – 7 percent, the government says.

Under the proposals, police and prison officers in England and Wales would receive a 7 percent pay rise, while teachers and junior doctors in England would get 6.5 percent and 6 percent respectively.