UK Visitor or Tourist Visa
Do you need to apply for a UK Visitor or Tourist Visa?
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UK Visitor or Tourist Visa is a category of visas which allow applicants to come to the UK for a short duration of up to 6 months at any one time or a total of 6 months during the 12 month period.
The purpose of a visit visa is to visit the UK for a short period of time for the purpose of visiting the UK for tourism, visit a family, visit friends or relatives, for the purpose of business or study a short course. Each applicant making an application for visit must meet the genuine visitor requirement under Appendix V of the Immigration Rules.
Some countries such as the USA, Canada, EU, Australia, etcetera get a visit visa on arrival and are not required to submit an application for a visit visa unless they have been refused entry to the UK as a visitor previously. All other applicants must submit a valid application for visitor or tourist visa to the UK.
Once a valid application has been made the applicants must decide whether they are applying for a standard visit visa which can be submitted with 6 month validity, 2 years, 5 years or 10 years validity.
If the intention is to get married in the UK, then the applicant must either submit a fiance visa if they have an intention of living in the UK permanently or a marriage visitor visa if they want to get married in the UK and then return to their home country or country of residence.
Alternatively if you are transitting through the UK for up to 48 hours then you can apply for a Transit visa.
All applicants must note that they are not allowed to work for remuneration in the UK unless they are applying for a permitted paid engagement visa, which are granted for a length of 1 month.
The applicants can study for a period up to 30 days, however, if they want to study for a short course longer than 30 days they must apply for a Student Visitor Visa.
None of the applicants must access medical treatment in the UK unless they are applying for a Medical Visitor Visa.
It must be noted that applicants generally cannot switch from a visitor visa to another visa category unless there are exceptional circumstances or compassionate and compelling grouds to extend the visit visa or submit an application for leave to remain.
Regardless of the category under which you apply for you must meet the General Eligibility requirement that are -
The applicant must leave the UK at the end of their visit; and
The applicant must not intend to visit the UK for long periods of time frequently or make successive visits to make the United Kingdom their main residence; and
The applicant must prove that they are a genuine visitor are visiting the UK for one of the permitted activities under the Appendix V of the Immigration Rules; and
The applicant must not undertake any prohibited activities in the United Kingdom, the activities; and
All applicants must have sufficient funds to cover the expenses for their trip to the UK including the cost of onward and return journey. They must also have sufficient funds to cover all the expenses in connection with their trip such as study or medical treatment, including the fact that the applicant must maintain and accommodate themselves and their dependents without recourse to public funds;
Regardless of the fact that you have a sponsor family in the UK, the applicants must provide a transparent account of their finances and show that they have strong, financial, familial, proprietary, economic, or cultural ties to their country of origin or residence outside the UK;
The applicants must also establish that they have genuine personal or professional relationship with the sponsor in the UK
There are various categories of visitor visas. Regardless of the category for the visit visa you apply under, you need to fulfill the general Eligibility requirements stated above in order to apply for a successful application, however, every category has its own separate eligibility requirements. We will provide different categories with the additional eligibility requirements.
(i) General Visitor - The general visitor visa covers all tourist applications or family visit applications. The eligibility requirements for this category are as stated above. The only additional requirement is that if you have a family in the UK, then you must establish your relationship with your family member in the UK.
(ii) Academic Visitor - In addition to the above requirements the applicants coming as an academic visitor for 12 months, must show that they are highly qualified within their field of expertise working in that field at an academic or higher education institution. The applicants are generally advisers, trainers or consultants, highly qualified in their field and visiting the UK for research, etc.
The applicants applying for academic visitor visa must provide a TB test certificate
(iii) Business Visitor - There are various categories within the business visit visa such as coming for business meetings, singing a contract, attending seminar, entertainment event, attending job interview, taking PLAB Exam, taking part in research or clinical event, attending court for legal matter, attending or taking part in a religious event, coming for performance at an event example as a singer, film crew or even for a sporting event. All these are activities under a business visitor visa.
In addition to the general eligibility requirements, the applicants must provide evidence of invitation for the event and must not be paid any remuneration in the UK. The applicants must prove that the visit is associated with their business or work outside the UK.
(iv) Child - A child can also visit the UK, however generally it is expected that the children will be traveling with their parents who are responsible for their care and wellbeing. If a child is traveling with someone else they must have the consent of their parents and there should be adequate care arrangements for the children.
(v) Medical Visitor Visa - An applicant can travel to the UK for medical treatment, however they must provide evidence that they have sufficient funds to cover the cost of the treatment. This must be a private medical treatment. The applicants are expected to provide evidence from doctors in the UK with the likely costs of the treatment and the length of the treatment. The applicants can be granted the visa for more than 6 months but less than 11 months.
The applicants are required to provide a TB test certificate if they are coming to the UK for a treatment for more than 6 months.
(vi) Student Visitor - An applicant can come to the UK if they intend to study a course at an accredited institution where the length of the course is up to 6 months. The applicant also apply for the student visitor to come to the UK in order to carry research or research tuition, to complete a course linked to overseas study in field of medicine, nursing, midwifery, veterinary medicine and science, or dentistry as their principal course of study equivalent to at least degree level study in the UK. The student visit visa can also be granted for people in order to complete the study-abroad programme, sit entrance exam, re-sit an exam, take oral exam for PhD qualification at a UK institution.
The length of the student visit visa is limited to 6 months, thus you must make sure that your course should not be for more than 6 months.
(vii) Marriage Visitor - if you intend to get married in the UK then you can apply for a marriage visitor visa, however, you will need to provide evidence of marriage arrangement in addition to meeting the general eligibility requirements of being a genuine visitor
(viii) Permitted Paid Engagement Visitor - Is for people who will mainly be paid for their work in the United Kingdom. The applicants can be visiting academic examiners or assessors, sports professionals, visiting for performance at an art event or coming as a qualified lawyer, etcetera. The main difference between a business visitor and Permitted paid engagement (PPE) is that you can be paid inside the UK when you are visiting on a PPE, however you cannot be paid on a business visitor visa. In any case you must prove that you are a genuine visitor. The PPE visa is only granted for a length of 1 month.
In all the cases the applicants must submit a valid application, not fall for refusal under the general grounds for refusal and meet the eligibility requirements of being a genuine visitor.
The application for a visitor visa must be submitted online via the www.gov.uk website. The applicant must make sure that they are applying under the correct category of application in order to submit a valid application.
The applicants must meet the Eligibility requirements of establishing themselves as a genuine visitor and prepare the evidence in order to support their application to show their ties to the country of residence or nationality.
The application must be paid online and the current fee in 2024 is £115 for a 6 months visitor visa. Once the application is submitted the applicant must upload the relevant evidence and then book an appointment at the relevant center VFS or TLS.
The applicants have the option to upload the evidence online or take the evidence for the purpose of scanning. The application is decided by the Home Office caseworker on the basis of the evidence adduced by the applicant.
The online applications can be logged into from the link which would be sent to the applicant via email. You may further need to log into the VFS or TLS in order to find the progress of the application, the online login sometimes does not work properly.
In order to check the status of your application you must login to TLS or VFS website after which you will need to provide your GWF number and this will allow you to check what stage your application is at with the Home Office.
If there are compassionate and compelling reasons beyond your control for example, you came as a visitor and met with an accident or you came as a medical visitor visa and you need to extend your stay in order to continue your treatment further. Such applications are considered under the Appendix V of the Immigration Rules . The application form to be used for the purpose of the extension is FLR (IR) form. You must continue to meet all the requirements for eligibility as stated above for the purpose of extending the stay as a visitor.
Generally, a UK visit visa is refused because -
The Entry Clearance Officer is not satisfied with the Balance of Probabilities;
Your financial circumstances are not clear or you have large deposits in your Bank Account;
You have been banned for 10 Years;
Your documents are not found to be genuine or unverifiable; or
Any other reason why the Home Office thinks that you will not leave the UK after the end of your visit
There can be other reasons for refusals, however, in our experience, most of the refusals are based on the fact that the applicant does not meet the requirements under Appendix V of the Immigration Rules.
If you have been refused then there is no right of appeal stated on the refusal letter. An appeal can still be lodged on the basis of Human Rights - if your Family Visitor Visa is refused and Human Rights were raised at the time of submitting the application. The only other ways are either to apply for Judicial Review or Re-Apply.
We have been able to get a successful outcome on most of our cases with a re-application if the applicant is able to provide the evidence requested.
If you would like to discuss your UK visit visa refusal Contact Us and we can advise you on how to achieve a successful outcome.
In order to book the appointment for your visit visa application you will need to submit the application online and then pay for the application fee after which you will be able to login to the VFS or TLS account. You will be able to book an appointment and also pay for additional services such as priority decision making within 5 days or 1 day (only in certain locations) or premium lounge appointment.
Before you apply for a UK visitor or tourist visa, we assess your circumstances and provide you with a quote for our services. If you choose to move ahead with your application, you pay an initial 50% deposit of our fees and 50% on submission of the application. We then provide you with a comprehensive checklist of documents you'll need, as well as templates approved by the Home Office.
We advise you on the evidence and process of submitting your visit visa application, reviewing all this evidence and suggesting any amendments you may require. We minimize the scope for refusal of your application - if there is anything which is of concern, we inform you of this and help you to remedy the issues. We prepare the application forms, and always send you these to review - this is to avoid any simple mistakes. We prepare and finalize your application for submission, and book you an appointment in the country where you will provide your biometric details. Should there be any delays to the processing times for your UK visitor visa, we will chase the application for you.
A: The current processing time for a visit visa is 3 weeks, however if pay for priority the processing time can take between 5 to 7 working days.
A: For the purpose of a 6 month visit visa you do not need to take a tuberculosis test, if you intend to spend more than 6 months then you will need to provide a tuberculosis test.
A: To satisfy the requirements under Appendix V of the Immigration Rules you will need to provide evidence of your financial, economic, social and proprietary/ monetary ties to your home country.
A: Under the Immigration Rules you are unable to switch from a valid visit visa to another visa, as it is not considered as a valid leave to remain, unless there are compassionate and compelling circumstances
A: You are only eligible to take recreational studies for up to 30 days. If you want to study for a short course you must apply for a Student Visitor visa or for work apply for a permitted paid engagement visa or a business visitor – for example to perform at an event.
Do you need to apply for a UK Visitor or Tourist Visa?
Speak to our experts to find out about our fast, friendly and affordable service
