UK Student Visa for Indian Students (2026)

The UK Student visa, formerly Tier 4, costs an application fee of about GBP 524 from outside the UK, plus the Immigration Health Surcharge at roughly GBP 776 for every year of your course, paid upfront in one go. You also need a CAS from a licensed university and maintenance funds of one year’s tuition plus GBP 1,334 a month for London or GBP 1,023 outside London. Confirm every figure on gov.uk.

A cousin of a friend applied for his UK Student visa last year, sailed through the maintenance maths, then froze when the online form asked him to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge for the full course at once. He had budgeted the visa fee. He had not budgeted a near GBP 1,600 health charge landing in the same week, and it nearly broke his transfer plan. That single line, paid upfront for every year of study, is the one most Indian families do not see coming.

This post stays strictly in the visa lane. It is the Student visa route, the fee, the surcharge, the maintenance rule and the steps, nothing else. If you want admissions, universities and the wider decision side of Britain, that lives in the study in UK for Indian students guide. For the full rupee budget of tuition and living, see the cost of studying in UK for Indian students post. Here we only talk visa.

What the UK Student visa actually is

The route most Indian degree students use is simply called the Student visa. It replaced the old Tier 4 (General) name a few years ago, so if an agent or an old blog still says Tier 4, they mean the same thing. It lets you come to the UK to study a course at a licensed student sponsor, usually a university, and it is the standard path for a Bachelor’s, a Master’s or a PhD.

The whole route hangs on one document: the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies, or CAS. This is a reference number your university issues once you have a firm offer and have usually paid a tuition deposit. Without a CAS from a licensed sponsor, there is no visa application to make. Everything else, the fee, the surcharge, the funds proof, comes after the CAS, and the official starting point for the rules is the Student visa page on gov.uk.

The fees, in INR

Let me put the money on the table first, because the rest of the post just unpacks these rows. The planning rate through this article is ₹105 per GBP. It moves, so re-check it the week you pay. Every figure here is the 2026-intake number as I write, so confirm the current amount on gov.uk before you transfer anything.

Visa cost	GBP	INR (at 105)
Student visa application fee (from outside UK)	~524	~55,000
Immigration Health Surcharge, per year of course	~776	~81,500
IHS for a one-year Master’s	~776	~81,500
IHS for a three-year Bachelor’s	~2,328	~2,44,000
Visa fee plus IHS, one-year course	~1,300	~1,36,500

So before a single rupee of tuition or rent, the pure visa layer for a one-year Master’s is around ₹1.36 lakh, and for a three-year Bachelor’s it is closer to ₹3 lakh because the surcharge multiplies by the years. This is the part the brochure number never shows you. The fee you can find anywhere. The surcharge, paid for the full course length in one upfront payment inside the online form, is the line that ambushes people.

The Immigration Health Surcharge: the line people miss

The Immigration Health Surcharge, or IHS, is what gives you access to the National Health Service while you study. It is roughly GBP 776 per year of your course, and the part that catches everyone is that you pay the whole thing upfront, for the entire length of your visa, inside the visa application itself. You do not pay it yearly. You pay it once, in full, before the visa is granted.

Run the numbers and you see why it stings. A one-year Master’s means about GBP 776, roughly ₹81,500. A three-year undergraduate degree means about GBP 2,328, roughly ₹2.44 lakh, due in one go. The visa system also tends to bill for a few months beyond your course dates, so the figure on your form can be a little higher than a clean year multiple. The current rate and exactly how it is calculated are on the IHS page at gov.uk, and you should treat that page as the source of truth, not any third-party calculator.

Faz's rule

Budget the IHS as a single upfront lump for the whole course, not as a yearly cost. For a multi-year degree it is the second biggest pre-departure cheque after first-year tuition.

People plan the GBP 524 fee and forget the surcharge entirely. Then the form asks for GBP 776 times your course years, in one payment, and the transfer plan wobbles. Add the full surcharge to your pre-departure cash pile from day one, so it is a tick-box on the day, not a shock.

Maintenance funds: the money you must show

This is the part that decides most refusals, so go slow here. To grant the visa, the Home Office wants proof that you can pay for your course and support yourself. The maintenance requirement has two parts added together.

First, your course fees for one year, or the outstanding balance after any deposit you have already paid, which your CAS will state. Second, living costs at a fixed monthly rate set by the Home Office: GBP 1,334 per month if you will be studying in London, or GBP 1,023 per month if you will be studying outside London. You show this living-cost amount for the length of your course up to a maximum of nine months. So the living-cost ceiling is roughly GBP 12,006 for London or GBP 9,207 outside London for a full nine months.

Maintenance component	London	Outside London
Living cost per month	GBP 1,334	GBP 1,023
Months you must show (max)	9	9
Living-cost total (9 months)	~GBP 12,006	~GBP 9,207
Living total in INR (at 105)	~₹12.6 lakh	~₹9.67 lakh
Plus	one year of course fees (per your CAS)

So the total funds you prove is one year’s tuition plus the living ceiling for your location. For a London Master’s with GBP 18,000 tuition, that is roughly GBP 30,000, about ₹31.5 lakh, that must sit in an acceptable account. This is a funds-proof figure, not a spending budget. It is what the Home Office wants to see, and the rules sit on the gov.uk money page for the Student visa.

The 28-day rule that quietly fails people

Here is the rule that catches careful applicants. The maintenance money must have been held in an acceptable account for at least 28 consecutive days, and the closing balance on your most recent statement must be dated within 31 days of your application. The money cannot dip below the required amount on any single day inside that 28-day window. One transfer in, one big payment out, and the clock resets.

The synthesised checklist below lays out the proof rules in the order the Home Office reads them, so you can audit your own statement before you apply.

A few practical things that quietly cause refusals. The account must be in your name or a parent’s name, and if it is a parent’s, you need a birth certificate and a letter of consent. Some account types, like certain investment or shared accounts, are not accepted. Cash that suddenly appears just before the 28 days, without an explainable source, raises a flag. The detail of what counts as acceptable evidence is on the same gov.uk money page, and it is worth reading line by line rather than trusting a summary.

Faz's rule

Freeze the maintenance money 28 clear days before you apply and do not touch the account. The funds proof fails on timing far more often than on amount.

Families get the total right and still get refused because money landed on day 20, or the balance dipped for a single afternoon. Park the full required amount in one acceptable account, leave a cushion above the threshold, and let it sit untouched for a clean 28 days plus a buffer. Boring beats clever here.

The application steps, in order

The route is more procedural than dramatic. Unlike the United States, there is usually no make-or-break interview for most applicants, though a short credibility interview can happen. The sequence runs like this.

• Get your CAS. Accept your offer, pay any required tuition deposit, and the university issues your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies reference number. This is the gate to the whole application.
• Hold your maintenance funds for 28 days. Get the required amount sitting clean in an acceptable account well before you apply, per the rule above.
• Apply online and pay. Complete the Student visa form on gov.uk, pay the application fee and pay the full Immigration Health Surcharge inside the form.
• Biometrics and documents. Book and attend a biometric appointment at a visa application centre in India, and submit or upload your CAS, financial evidence, passport, English-language proof and any academic documents.
• Decision. Wait for the outcome, then collect your visa or, increasingly, activate your digital immigration status.

Some applicants from India may also need a tuberculosis test certificate from an approved clinic, and certain courses require an ATAS certificate. Both are listed in the document checklist on gov.uk for your specific situation, so check before you book anything.

Processing time and the honest refusal reality

For applications made from outside the UK, the standard service usually returns a decision within about three weeks, though it varies by season and by visa centre load, and priority services can be faster for an extra fee. Apply with a comfortable margin before your course start date, because the biometric appointment and any TB or document follow-up eat into the timeline.

On refusals, the honest picture is calmer than the internet suggests. The UK Student route has a high grant rate for genuine, well-documented applicants, and most refusals are not about your intent being doubted. They are about the funds proof: the 28-day window broken, the wrong account type, a missing consent letter, or a statement dated outside the window. Get the maintenance evidence clean and the rest of the application is mostly careful form-filling. The wider rules and current processing guidance are on gov.uk.

Work rights and the Graduate Route

On a Student visa for a full-time degree at a university, you can usually work up to 20 hours per week during term time, and full-time outside term, during holidays. The 20-hour cap is strict and counted carefully, and breaching it is a serious immigration matter, not a grey area. Some study levels and institution types carry tighter or no work rights, so your CAS and visa conditions are the final word on what you are allowed.

The real prize sits after the course. The Graduate Route lets eligible students stay in the UK for two years after finishing a degree, three years after a PhD, to work or look for work, with no employer sponsorship needed during that window. That post-study runway is a large part of why the British ticket can repay, but it belongs to the decision conversation, not this visa page. If you are weighing Britain against the other big destination, that comparison sits in the UK vs Canada for Indian students post.

The honest take on the UK Student visa

The UK Student visa is one of the more predictable routes for a well-prepared Indian applicant. There is no high-stakes interview lottery, the steps are clear, and the grant rate for clean files is high. What trips families is not the difficulty of the process, it is the size of the upfront cash demand. The visa fee plus the full Immigration Health Surcharge plus first-year tuition plus the maintenance proof all stack into the same few weeks, and the total is larger than the brochure ever suggested.

So plan the visa as a cash-flow problem, not a paperwork problem. Stage the money early, freeze the maintenance funds for a clean 28 days, and treat the surcharge as a single upfront lump from day one. If you are financing the gap, how the loan is sized against these certified numbers sits in the education loan for UK post, and the mechanics of funds proof across destinations are in the proof of funds for student visa guide. Get the cash staged right and the British visa becomes the calm, procedural step it is supposed to be.

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