Tuesday, 14 September 2010

UK Border Agency massively hike fees

ObverseImage via Wikipedia
Source: Free Movement

Substantial rises are set for most immigration fees on 1 October 2010, on the basis of the laughable justification that UKBA ‘want to ensure that we can offer a good level of customer service’. They also openly state that the increases are to ‘mitigate against a reduction in income to the Agency’.

I’m not sure whether this is a reference to central funding cuts or to the proposed reduction in migrants. Perhaps UKBA feels it needs to maintain its income from fees and the only way to do so is increase the fees for the smaller numbers of migrants they expect?

Examples include:
  • Settlement visas from £644 to £750 (apparently they “offer an extremely generous package of benefits to applicants”, which sounds like Time Share speak to me)
  • Tier 1 visa from £690 to 750
  • Tier 1 in-country from £840 to £850
  • Tier 2 visa from £270 to £350
  • Tier 2 in-country from £475 to £500
  • Tier 4 visa from £199 to £220
  • Tier 4 in-country held at £357
  • Tier 5 from £128 to £130
  • Short term visit visas from £68 to £70
  • 2, 5 and 10 year visit visas to £245, £450 and £650 respectively
  • Increase in dependent fees to 20-30% of the principal applicant fee
For the full table follow this link (pdf document)
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