The United Kingdom (UK) has announced that it will ‘significantly’ increase visa fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS).
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, disclosed the development during a Downing Street press conference on Thursday, noting that it will help fund public-sector pay increases.
Recall that public sector workers in the UK, including teachers and health workers, have recently embarked on strikes demanding a pay increase across the country.
Sunak said if the government is to prioritise paying public sector workers more, the money has to come from somewhere else because he is not prepared to increase people’s taxes and does not think it would be responsible or right to borrow more as it would only worsen inflation.
“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,” Sunak added.
According to the prime minister, an increase in fees is imminent, projecting a revenue boost of over one billion pounds.
He noted that the proposed adjustments encompass a broad range of visa application fees, which are set to rise significantly. Similarly, the immigration health surcharge for legal migrants entering the country will be raised.
“All of those fees are going to go up, and that will raise over a billion pounds. Across the board, visa application fees are going to go up significantly, and similarly for the immigration health surcharge for migrants who are coming to this country legally.”
The Prime Minister had stated a few weeks earlier at the US embassy that he would be raising fees for processing non-immigrant visa (NIV) applications.
According to a statement on the US embassy’s website, the new fees for various visa categories will go into effect on Monday, June 17, 2023.
