The cost of expedited immigration processes in the United Kingdom has seen a sharp increase, with the government increasing fast-track visa application fees by 75%.
Effective October 21, this increase is said to be part of the Home Office’s strategy to generate revenue and manage the administration of expedited services.
The increase in the fast-track visa application fees means sponsoring employers, students, educational institutions, and foreign workers would face a new financial burden.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that the most substantial hike affected the expedited processing of sponsorship management requests for Worker, Temporary Worker, and Student sponsors.
The fee for this service has jumped from £200 to £350, representing a sharp 75% increase.
Meanwhile, the priority service for expedited processing of sponsor licence applications has risen by 50%, moving from £500 to £750.
These increases apply specifically to the in-country, expedited immigration services, while standard processing fees remain unchanged for now.
The revised structure means that businesses relying on rapid turnover of applications must now budget considerably more for their recruitment strategies.
The government maintained that these fee adjustments are necessary to fund the administrative capacity required to deliver quicker decisions, reflecting the premium value placed on faster adjudication.
No exemptions have been announced, meaning both corporate sponsors and educational institutions managing visa applications will face the higher costs.
According to Fragomen, the global immigration law firm, the new rates are part of the UK’s continuing effort to speed up immigration processing while covering administrative costs. “These adjustments support faster adjudication timelines while maintaining service quality,” the firm said in a statement.
However, industry experts warn that the continually rising costs of UK immigration pose a challenge to the UK’s competitiveness in attracting global talent.
An immigration expert said: “This latest round of fee rises, which directly targets the quicker services that many businesses depend on, contributes to the overall financial pressure. When combined with other recent increases, such as the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and standard visa application fees, the total cost for securing and maintaining a sponsored worker can quickly escalate.
“For UK employers, the sharp hike in UK fast-track visa services requires an immediate reassessment of talent acquisition budgets and timelines. Companies frequently utilise priority services to ensure critical international staff can start work swiftly or to onboard global talent ahead of project deadlines.
“The new £350 charge for expedited management requests, for instance, means that managing necessary updates or changes to sponsorship details now comes at a steep price. This could potentially lead some employers to revert to standard processing routes, resulting in longer waiting periods for key personnel and impacting business operations.”
The increment in the fast-track visa application fees came after the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer released an immigration white paper.
The UK immigration white paper includes restricting skilled worker visas to graduate-level jobs, banning overseas recruitment for care workers, and increasing the Immigration Skills Charge by 32% to incentivize businesses to train local workers.
Additionally, the time required for immigrants to apply for indefinite leave to remain has been extended from five to ten years, a move that could make UK citizenship one of the hardest to attain in the Anglophone world.
Starmer also introduced stricter English language requirements across all visa routes and emphasized integration, warning that without these measures, the UK risks becoming “an island of strangers.”
