Visa Information

Quick links to information on visa categories and other helpful information can be found below. These links will take you to information on the UK Border Agency website where the information is only available in English. You will need to return to this website for details about applying for a visa in your country. You may also want to read the Immigration Rules as your visa application will need to meet these requirements.

Visitors

• Tourism or visiting friends
  
  

Transit

• Visitors in transit (If you want to transit between 2 UK airports/ports or you need to change airlines and clear UK immigration control or you have a brief stopover of less than 48 hours. Your intention must be to transit and not visit the UK)
  
• Direct airside transit (If you are changing planes at a single UK airport and do not need to clear UK immigration control)
  
• Crew members - seafarers
  
  

Visitors for business

• Business (general)
• Academic visitors
• Doctors coming for Professional & Linguistic Assessment Board Test (PLAB)
• Doctors undertaking clinical attachments
• Dentists undertaking clinical observer posts
• Professors accompanying students undertaking study abroad programmes
• Religious workers
• Sports visitor
• Entertainer visitor
  
  

Special visitors

• Private medical treatment
• Visitors coming to get married
• Parents of children at school in the UK
• Student visitor (As a student visitor you may take a short course of study during your visit to the UK, providing you are attending an educational institution that is on the Tier 4 sponsor register, is accredited by a designated accreditation body or forms part of an overseas higher education institute. Under this category you will be regarded as a visitor and not a student and for this reason you cannot work or extend your stay).
• Prospective students

Long term visit visa

Long term visit visa. (You should give careful consideration before applying for a long term visit visa for 1, 2, 5 or 10 years as there is the possibility that the visa may be refused, or issued for a shorter period than you have applied for. If the application is refused or the visa is issued for a shorter period, you will not be refunded the difference in the visa application fee).

Students

• Student visitor (As a student visitor you may take a short course of study during your visit to the UK, providing you are attending an educational institution that is on the Tier 4 sponsor register, is accredited by a designated accreditation body or forms part of an overseas higher education institute. Under this category you will be regarded as a visitor and not a student and for this reason you cannot work or extend your stay).
  
• Tier 4 General students and Tier 4 child student (Applications made under Tier 4 of the points-based system give full student status rather than visitor status. Under Tier 4 you are entitled to work part-time, subject to certain restrictions, and extend your stay if necessary)
  
• Points-based system self assessment calculator
  
• Tier 4 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 4 Sponsor register
• Tier 4 Adult students - Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS)
  
• Tier 4 Child students - Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS)

Work/ Employment/ Permit free workers

• Work permit visas
  
• Permit free workers
  
  • Sole representative of an overseas firm in the UK
    
  • Representatives of overseas newspapers, news agencies and broadcasting organizations
    
• Overseas domestic workers in private households

Tier 1 (Highly skilled workers)

• Tier 1 (General skilled worker) migrant (For people who meet the highly skilled criteria. No UK job offer is required).
  
• Tier 1 Investor (For people making a substantial financial investment in the UK)
  
• Tier 1 Entrepreneur (For people investing in the UK by setting up or taking over, and being actively involved in running 1 or more businesses in the UK).
  
• Tier 1 Post-study work (For people who were awarded an acceptable qualification from a UK institution within the last 12 months, and want to work in the UK for a limited period)
  
• Tier 1 Policy guidance

Tier 2 (Skilled workers)

• Tier 2 General skill worker (For people coming to the United Kingdom with a job offer to fill a gap that cannot be filled from within the resident labour force. This category is also for applicants coming to fill shortage occupations)
  
• Tier 2 Intra company transfer (For employees of multi-national companies who are being transferred by an overseas employer to a skilled job in a UK based branch of the company)
  
• Tier 2 Sportsperson (For elite sportspeople and coaches whose employment will make a significant contribution to the development of their sport at the highest level).
  
• Tier 2 Minister of religion (For those people coming to fill a vacancy as a Minister of religion, Missionary, or Member of a religious order)
• Tier 2 Policy guidance

Tier 5 - Youth mobility & temporary workers

• Tier 5 Creative and sporting (For people coming to the United Kingdom to work or perform as sportspeople, entertainers or creative artists for up to 12 months)
  
• Tier 5 Charity worker (For people coming to the UK to do voluntary, unpaid work for a charity).
  
• Tier 5 Religious worker (For people coming to the UK to work as religious workers. Duties may include preaching, pastoral and non-pastoral work)
  
• Tier 5 Government authorised exchange (Government authorised exchange for people coming to the UK through approved schemes that aim to share knowledge, experience and best practice)
  
• Tier 5 International agreement (Tier 5 Government authorised exchange for people coming to the United Kingdom under contract to provide a service that is covered under international law)
  
• Tier 5 Youth mobility scheme (For young people from participating countries who would like to experience life in the UK)
• Tier 5 Policy guidance

Points-based system

• Self assessment calculator
• Tier 1 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 2 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 4 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 5 Policy guidance
  

Settlement visas

• Husbands, wives, & partners (For someone who wants to settle in the UK as the husband, wife, civil partner, fiancé, fiancée, proposed civil partner, or unmarried partner or same-sex partner of someone who is coming to the UK or is already 'present and settled)
  
• Adopted children
  
• Family members (For someone who wants to live in the UK with relatives already living there)
  
• Elderly dependent relatives (If you are a parent, grandparent or other dependant relative of a British citizen or a person settled in the UK).

Other visa categories

• Returning residents (For someone who has left the UK and has been given permission to come back again to live in the UK, with no time limit.)
  
• Right of abode
  
• United Kingdom ancestry

Sponsoring a visitor

• Sponsoring a visitor

General information

• Supporting document checklists
  
• Visa nationals
  
• European Economic Area & Swiss nationals
  
• Photograph requirements
  
• Biometric data collection
  
• Biometric data collection exemptions
  
• Health (tuberculosis) screening

Coming to the UK?

• Playing by the Rules
  
• What can you bring into the UK
  
• Arriving at the UK border
  
• British citizenship
  
• UK Passports