Tuesday 07 April, 2026

New rates take effect April 8. The visit visa is now N230,000 before exchange rate moves.

If you're planning to apply for a UK visa and you haven't submitted yet, today matters.

From tomorrow, April 8, 2026, the UK Home Office increases fees across nearly every visa category. The changes affect everyone. People visiting family, students applying for university places, skilled workers seeking employment, and those applying for permanent residency or citizenship.

Here's the breakdown of the categories most relevant to Nigerians.

The short-term visit visa (up to six months) rises from £127 to £135. That's roughly N189,000 to N230,000 at current rates, though the naira doesn't stay still long enough for the comparison to hold by the time you're reading this.

The student visa increases from £524 to £558. The skilled worker visa for stays over three years goes from £1,519 to £1,618. Indefinite Leave to Remain across multiple categories rises by £197. British citizenship applications increase to £1,709. Settlement applications rise to £3,635.

There is one exception. Registering a child as a British citizen drops from £1,214 to £1,000. That's the one place the fee goes down.

This is the third major fee increase since October 2023, when some categories jumped by 35%. The Immigration Health Surcharge was sharply raised in 2024. Now the visa fees themselves have moved again, this time by 6 to 7 percent across most categories.

The pattern is clear. The UK is progressively moving its immigration system toward a self-financing model, which in practice means every person applying bears more of the cost. Nigerians are among the largest groups of UK visa applicants each year. Each increase lands at a moment when the naira is already doing its own damage to the real cost.

If you have a completed application that you haven't submitted, today is the day to submit it.

If you're still gathering documents, the new rates apply from tomorrow.

What happened. What it means. What changes.