🇬🇧 UK (Standard Visitor) — Visa Documents for Indians

Step 1 of 7

What a visitor is allowed to do

The UK is unusual in publishing what you may DO rather than only what to bring, and it is worth reading before you write anything on the form. As a Standard Visitor you can come for tourism or a holiday, to see family or friends, to volunteer for up to 30 days with a registered charity, to pass through the UK in transit, or for certain business activities such as attending a meeting or an interview. You can take a recreational course of up to 30 days — a dance course, say — and you can study, do a placement or sit an exam, provided the course runs no longer than 6 months. There are also narrower routes: a permitted paid engagement as an expert in your field, for instance to lecture or perform; a school exchange programme; visiting as an academic, senior doctor or dentist; and coming for medical reasons.

🔴 The list of what you cannot do is short and one item on it catches people out badly. You cannot do paid or unpaid work for a UK company or as a self-employed person, unless it is a permitted paid engagement. You cannot claim public funds. You cannot live in the UK for long periods through frequent or successive visits. And you cannot marry or register a civil partnership — nor even GIVE NOTICE of one — on a Standard Visitor visa. Giving notice is itself barred, so a couple planning to marry in the UK is outside this visa before the wedding is booked; that needs a Marriage Visitor visa instead.

Source: UKVI

Step 2 of 7

The test you have to pass

This is the actual test a caseworker applies, and UKVI publishes it plainly. You must hold a passport or travel document valid for the whole of your stay, and you must be able to show four things: that you will leave the UK at the end of your visit; that you can support yourself and any dependants during the trip, or that someone else is funding you; that you can pay for your return or onward journey, or that someone else is; and that you will not live in the UK through frequent or successive visits, or make it your main home. Every document you gather is really evidence for one of those four sentences — which is a more useful way to assemble a file than working from a list.

India is on the UK's list of countries whose residents need a tuberculosis test, and it has approved clinics inside the country, so you would not have to travel abroad for one. But check whether it actually applies to you before booking: the requirement bites when you are coming to the UK for more than 6 months, and an ordinary Standard Visitor visa is capped at 6 months per visit — so a normal holiday does not trigger it. It does reach the longer visitor routes, the 11-month medical visa and the 12-month academic one. The test is a chest X-ray, with a sputum sample only if the X-ray is unclear, and the certificate you receive is valid for 6 months from the date of the X-ray, so timing it too early wastes it. Children must be seen by a clinician who decides whether an X-ray is needed, and children under 11 are not normally X-rayed. If you are pregnant you can choose a shielded X-ray in the second or third trimester, a sputum test — which may cost extra and take up to 8 weeks for results — or to wait until after delivery.

Source: UKVI

Step 3 of 7

Before you apply

You apply online yourself, before you travel, and then attend an appointment at a visa application centre. There is no agent between you and the Home Office — the form is yours to submit, and the centre exists to take your biometrics and your documents.

The earliest you can apply is 3 months before you travel. That is a shorter runway than it sounds, because the decision usually takes 3 weeks and the appointment has to fit inside it.

One way to lose your fee before the application is even looked at: if you have the right of abode in the UK — if you are a British citizen, for example — your visitor application will not be accepted and you will not get a refund. What you need instead is a certificate of entitlement. Worth a moment's thought if there is any British citizenship in your history.

Source: UKVI

Step 4 of 7

What you fill in online

Everyone brings these

• The dates you plan to travel
• Where you will be staying during the visit
• How much you think the trip will cost
• Your current home address, and how long you have lived there
• Your parents' names and dates of birth, if you know them
• How much you earn in a year, if you have an income
• Details of any criminal, civil or immigration offences

And these, if they apply to you

• Your travel history for the past 10 years
• Your employer's address and telephone number
• Your partner's name, date of birth and passport number
• The name and address of anyone paying for your trip
• The name, address and passport number of any family you have in the UK
• A TB test certificate — only if you are visiting for more than 6 months, so not for the standard visitor visa
• Certified translations of anything not in English or Welsh

The UK does not publish a visitor-visa document checklist. It publishes the information you must enter online, and then asks for “the required documents that show you're eligible” at your appointment, telling you what those are when you apply. Any site showing you a definitive UK checklist has assembled it themselves.

Any document that is not in English or Welsh must be submitted with a certified translation. Not your own translation, and not an informal one — which means budgeting time for it rather than discovering the requirement at the appointment.

Build these files with the checklist above

Source: UKVI

Step 5 of 7

The appointment

At the centre you prove your identity with your passport, have your fingerprints and photo taken, and hand over the documents that show you are eligible. You get your passport back the same day, though the centre may keep other documents while the application is processed. UKVI warns that the centre could be in another country — worth checking before you plan the trip around it.

Source: UKVI

Step 6 of 7

What it costs

£135 for the standard 6-month visitor visa. £234 for the medical visitor visa (11 months) and the same for the academic visitor visa (12 months). The long-term visitor visas cost £506 for 2 years, £903 for 5 years and £1,128 for 10 years.

There is no refund if your application is refused, and none if you are granted a shorter visa than the one you paid for. Everyone travelling needs their own application, their own fee and their own appointment — a family of four is four of everything.

If passing through the UK is your only reason for coming, you do not need a full visitor visa. A Visitor in Transit visa costs £74.50 instead of £135. It is worth checking against your itinerary, because transit is also a permitted activity on the Standard Visitor visa — the cheaper document is only the right one when transit is genuinely the whole purpose of the trip.

🔴 A long-term visitor visa bought for someone under 18 is not the bargain it looks like. If the applicant is under 18 on the day they apply, the visa is only valid until 6 months after they turn 18, whatever length was paid for. A 10-year visa costs £1,128, and for a seventeen-year-old that can buy well under two years of validity. There is no refund for the difference.

Source: UKVI

Step 7 of 7

What you get, and how long you can stay

You usually get a decision within 3 weeks of applying online, proving your identity and providing your documents. The clock starts after the appointment, not after you submit the form.

The standard visitor visa lasts 6 months. Long-term versions last 2, 5 or 10 years. If you are under 18 when you apply, a long-term visa is only valid until 6 months after you turn 18.

🔴 A 10-year visa does not let you stay 10 years. Every long-term visitor visa still caps each visit at 6 months — the length you are buying is how long you may keep coming back, not how long you may stay. UKVI also warns that a visa may be cancelled if your travel history shows you repeatedly living in the UK for extended periods.

Source: UKVI