Visitors

• Tourism or visiting friends
  
  

Transit

• Visitors in transit (If you want to transit between 2 UK airports/ports or you need to change airlines and clear UK immigration control or you have a brief stopover of less than 48 hours. Your intention must be to transit and not visit the UK)
  
• Direct airside transit (If you are changing planes at a single UK airport and do not need to clear UK immigration control)
  
• Crew members - seafarers
  
  

Visitors for business

• Business (general)
• Academic visitors
• Doctors coming for Professional & Linguistic Assessment Board Test (PLAB)
• Doctors undertaking clinical attachments
• Dentists undertaking clinical observer posts
• Professors accompanying students undertaking study abroad programmes
• Religious workers
• Sports visitor
• Entertainer visitor
  
  

Special visitors

• Private medical treatment
• Visitors coming to get married
• Parents of children at school in the UK
• Student visitor (As a student visitor you may take a short course of study during your visit to the UK, providing you are attending an educational institution that is on the Tier 4 sponsor register, is accredited by a designated accreditation body or forms part of an overseas higher education institute. Under this category you will be regarded as a visitor and not a student and for this reason you cannot work or extend your stay).
• Prospective students

Long term visit visa

Long term visit visa. (You should give careful consideration before applying for a long term visit visa for 1, 2, 5 or 10 years as there is the possibility that the visa may be refused, or issued for a shorter period than you have applied for. If the application is refused or the visa is issued for a shorter period, you will not be refunded the difference in the visa application fee).

Students

• Student visitor (As a student visitor you may take a short course of study during your visit to the UK, providing you are attending an educational institution that is on the Tier 4 sponsor register, is accredited by a designated accreditation body or forms part of an overseas higher education institute. Under this category you will be regarded as a visitor and not a student and for this reason you cannot work or extend your stay).
  
• Tier 4 General students and Tier 4 child student (Applications made under Tier 4 of the points-based system give full student status rather than visitor status. Under Tier 4 you are entitled to work part-time, subject to certain restrictions, and extend your stay if necessary)
  
• Points-based system self assessment calculator
  
• Tier 4 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 4 Sponsor register
• Tier 4 Adult students - Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS)
  
• Tier 4 Child students - Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS)

Work/ Employment/ Permit free workers

• Work permit visas
  
• Permit free workers
  
  • Sole representative of an overseas firm in the UK
    
  • Representatives of overseas newspapers, news agencies and broadcasting organizations
    
• Overseas domestic workers in private households

Tier 1 (Highly skilled workers)

• Tier 1 (General skilled worker) migrant (For people who meet the highly skilled criteria. No UK job offer is required).
  
• Tier 1 Investor (For people making a substantial financial investment in the UK)
  
• Tier 1 Entrepreneur (For people investing in the UK by setting up or taking over, and being actively involved in running 1 or more businesses in the UK).
  
• Tier 1 Post-study work (For people who were awarded an acceptable qualification from a UK institution within the last 12 months, and want to work in the UK for a limited period)
  
• Tier 1 Policy guidance

Tier 2 (Skilled workers)

• Tier 2 General skill worker (For people coming to the United Kingdom with a job offer to fill a gap that cannot be filled from within the resident labour force. This category is also for applicants coming to fill shortage occupations)
  
• Tier 2 Intra company transfer (For employees of multi-national companies who are being transferred by an overseas employer to a skilled job in a UK based branch of the company)
  
• Tier 2 Sportsperson (For elite sportspeople and coaches whose employment will make a significant contribution to the development of their sport at the highest level).
  
• Tier 2 Minister of religion (For those people coming to fill a vacancy as a Minister of religion, Missionary, or Member of a religious order)
• Tier 2 Policy guidance

Tier 5 - Youth mobility & temporary workers

• Tier 5 Creative and sporting (For people coming to the United Kingdom to work or perform as sportspeople, entertainers or creative artists for up to 12 months)
  
• Tier 5 Charity worker (For people coming to the UK to do voluntary, unpaid work for a charity).
  
• Tier 5 Religious worker (For people coming to the UK to work as religious workers. Duties may include preaching, pastoral and non-pastoral work)
  
• Tier 5 Government authorised exchange (Government authorised exchange for people coming to the UK through approved schemes that aim to share knowledge, experience and best practice)
  
• Tier 5 International agreement (Tier 5 Government authorised exchange for people coming to the United Kingdom under contract to provide a service that is covered under international law)
  
• Tier 5 Youth mobility scheme (For young people from participating countries who would like to experience life in the UK)
• Tier 5 Policy guidance

Points-based system

• Self assessment calculator
• Tier 1 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 2 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 4 Policy guidance
  
• Tier 5 Policy guidance
  

Settlement visas

• Husbands, wives, & partners (For someone who wants to settle in the UK as the husband, wife, civil partner, fiancé, fiancée, proposed civil partner, or unmarried partner or same-sex partner of someone who is coming to the UK or is already 'present and settled)
  
• Adopted children
  
• Family members (For someone who wants to live in the UK with relatives already living there)
  
• Elderly dependent relatives (If you are a parent, grandparent or other dependant relative of a British citizen or a person settled in the UK).

Other visa categories

• Returning residents (For someone who has left the UK and has been given permission to come back again to live in the UK, with no time limit.)
  
• Right of abode
  
• United Kingdom ancestry

Sponsoring a visitor

• Sponsoring a visitor

General information

• Supporting document checklists
  
• Visa nationals
  
• European Economic Area & Swiss nationals
  
• Photograph requirements
  
• Biometric data collection
  
• Biometric data collection exemptions
  
• Health (tuberculosis) screening

Coming to the UK?

• Playing by the Rules
  
• What can you bring into the UK
  
• Arriving at the UK border
  
• British citizenship
  
• UK Passports