Immigration Health Surcharge to rise on 6 February

As we informed you a while ago in our blog, the Government has made the decision to substantially increase the Immigration Health Surcharge, by 66%, but we did not know when it would happen. (The IHS fees are passed on by the Home Office to the NHS in order to help pay for NHS healthcare that the migrant might receive.)

But now we know when: it will be on 6 February 2024.

The current IHS fees, which are currently either £624 or £470 per year – depending on the visa type – will on that date increase to £1,035 or £776 respectively.

So, as we previously advised you, if you are thinking of making a visa application now could be the time, before the fees go up.

There could however be come complexities about this. If you are on a route to settlement you may need to accrue, for example, five years’ leave before you can apply for settlement. But if you make an early visa extension application it is possible that you would not accrue five years, and in this sort of situation you would be in the unfortunate position where you would need to make an extra extension application just to give you a few weeks’ or a couple of months’ leave so you can accrue the five years in total and thus qualify for settlement.

If you have issues in this area we at GSN Immigration will be able to give you expert advice.

Oliver Westmoreland

Senior Immigration Lawyer