UK visa fee to rise ‘significantly’. This is how much Indians will have to pay | World news
Fees and health charges paid by visa applicants, including Indian nationals, to the National Health Service (NHS) will increase significantly, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced. The rise could be reported at around 15 per cent to 20 per cent although no official confirmation has been given yet.
Through the tour, Rishi Sunak aims to support the increase in the wages of the UK public, which includes teachers, police, junior doctors, and public sector workers as he said that the general increase of 5 to 7 per cent across the board. The UK government will not rely on increased borrowing to cover these costs because of concerns about inflation, he said.
“If we are going to prioritize paying public servants more, that money has to come from somewhere else because I am not prepared to raise people’s wages and I don’t think it would be responsible or right to borrow more because that would just makes inflation worse,” said Rishi Sunak.
“So, what we have done is two things to find this money. The first thing is, we’re going to take the fees we have for immigrants who come to this country when they apply for a visa and actually something called the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), which is a tax. who pay to access the NHS. ,” he added.
“All those costs are going to go up and it’s going to raise over GBP 1 billion, so across the board visa application costs are going to go up significantly and the same for IHS,” he explained.
How much do you need to pay now?
The government confirmed that duty and immigration fees will rise by 15%. All other visa fees will rise by at least 20%. The immigration health surcharge was first introduced in 2015 at £200 per application. It has doubled to £400 in 2018 and will rise to £624 in 2020.
