UK Visa Fees for Indians: What UKVI Charges, and Where the IHS Doesn't Apply

Most guides to a UK visitor visa from India print the headline fee and stop. Two things they usually skip: whether the Immigration Health Surcharge — a real UK visa cost, £1,035 a year on other routes — applies to a visit visa at all, and whether the rupee amount charged at payment is a card issuer's guess or the Home Office's own fixed number. Both questions have clean, sourced answers. This page is the fee structure alone, in GBP and INR, checked directly against gov.uk and the Home Office's own fee tool — for how to actually book the appointment once you've paid, see UK visa appointment booking from India.

What UKVI actually charges#

Gov.uk's own fee table, current as of 8 April 2026 and re-checked 26 August 2026, alongside the Home Office's own INR conversion for applications from India:

Every long-term visa still caps a single visit at 6 months — paying more buys more years of re-entry, not a longer stay on any one trip. Worth flagging directly: this site's own UK visitor visa guide quoted ₹17,949 for the 6-month visa when it last checked the Home Office's table on 1 August 2026. The live table now shows ₹18,322 for the identical £135 fee — the pound amount has not moved, but the published rupee conversion has, under the Home Office's own exchange rate policy. That is the whole point of checking the live table rather than trusting a fixed number from any guide, this one included.

Does the Immigration Health Surcharge apply here? No#

The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) is a real, separate charge on many UK visa routes — currently £1,035 a year for most adult applicants, £776 a year for students and under-18s, per gov.uk's own healthcare-payment guidance. It is not part of the visa fee table above, and it does not apply to a visitor visa at all. Gov.uk states this without qualification, in the section titled "Visitor visas and short-term visas": "You do not need to pay the surcharge if you're applying for a: visitor visa." The same page adds, elsewhere: "You do not need to pay if you're applying for a visitor visa or to remain in the UK permanently."

This exemption covers the 6-month Standard Visitor visa and the 2/5/10-year long-term visitor visas equally — the IHS applies to routes that grant continuous leave beyond 6 months, such as Skilled Worker or Student visas, not to a visit visa whose every individual stay is still capped at 6 months regardless of how many years the visa document itself remains valid for. Gov.uk's separate guidance on the surcharge amount confirms the same boundary from the other direction: "You do not need to pay the surcharge if you're applying from outside the UK for 6 months or less." A visitor visa never crosses that 6-month line on a single visit, so the surcharge never applies. Anyone budgeting for a UK trip who has seen the £1,035 IHS figure quoted elsewhere on the internet — real, but for a different visa category entirely — can drop it from a visitor-visa budget with a direct gov.uk citation behind that decision.

Priority and Super Priority: what they add#

Priority and Super Priority are add-on services chosen at the same time as the base fee, not separate products — the full timing mechanics, refund conditions and the one dated VFS Global data point on centre-by-centre availability are covered in UK visa appointment booking from India. The costs alone, from gov.uk's own guidance:

Neither figure has a published INR conversion on the Home Office's fee tool — only the base visa fee gets that treatment. Priority and Super Priority are charged in pounds and convert at whatever rate your card issuer applies on the day, the same way a foreign-currency purchase would on any other site.

How the rupee price is actually set#

This is the detail most third-party guides get backwards. The £135 base fee (and the £506/£903/£1,128 long-term fees) are not converted to rupees by your bank when you pay — the Home Office itself publishes the exact rupee figure to charge applicants from India, on visa-fees.homeoffice.gov.uk, and updates that figure periodically under its own stated exchange rate policy. The number in the table above is that fixed, published price, not an estimate.

Two costs sit outside that fixed rupee table entirely. First, Priority and Super Priority, covered above — charged in pounds, converted at the card issuer's own rate. Second, VFS Global's own service fee for running the biometric appointment in India, typically in the ₹3,000–₹5,000 range depending on the centre and any optional extras such as SMS updates or courier return of the passport — a separate line, paid to a different party, and not on the Home Office's fee table at all.

Fees for the less common visitor categories#

Beyond the Standard Visitor visa, gov.uk prices a handful of narrower visitor-route products that occasionally apply to Indian travellers — a transit through the UK, or a Marriage Visitor visa for a wedding:

A Direct Airside Transit visa applies only if you never pass through UK border control at all — anyone staying airside between connecting flights but leaving the transit area needs the Visitor in Transit visa instead, priced closer to the standard visit fee. The Marriage Visitor visa costs the same £135/₹18,322 as the standard 6-month visit visa but is a distinct application, for travel specifically to marry or register a civil partnership in the UK.

What this means for your trip cost#

The Home Office's published fee — £135/₹18,322 for the ordinary case — is not the full cost of getting a UK visa from India. Add VFS Global's service fee (₹3,000–₹5,000) for the realistic floor, and Priority or Super Priority on top of that only if the decision timeline genuinely needs it. What the number does not include, confirmed directly against gov.uk in the section above, is the Immigration Health Surcharge — a cost real enough to budget for on a work or study visa, and one a visitor-visa applicant from India can strike from the list entirely. The full application walkthrough, document checklist and long-term-visa breakeven maths sit on UK visitor visa for Indians; what happens after payment, at the VFS booking screen, is covered on UK visa appointment booking from India.

VisaGyan is not affiliated with VFS Global or UK Visas and Immigration; we book nothing and arrange nothing. Every fee on this page traces to a gov.uk or Home Office page named above, checked 26 August 2026. Fees and the published INR conversion change without notice — verify the live figure on visa-fees.homeoffice.gov.uk before you pay.

Sources cited only — expert review pending. For individualized advice, consult a licensed professional.