The UK Standard Visitor visa, from application to decision

If your passport is on the UK’s visa national list, you need a Standard Visitor visa before you travel. It costs £135, lets you stay up to six months, and a decision usually takes about three weeks from your appointment. If your passport is not on that list, you most likely need a £20 electronic travel authorisation instead, or nothing at all.

Everything below was read off gov.uk and the Immigration Rules on 30 September 2026. Where the Home Office does not publish something, we say so rather than fill the gap.

Visa, ETA or neither

Gov.uk sorts every visitor into one of three groups, depending on nationality. You either have to apply for a Standard Visitor visa before you travel, or apply for an ETA, or can visit for up to six months with neither.

The legal line is the visa national list in the Immigration Rules. Paragraph V 1.1 of Appendix V says a visa national must get entry clearance before arriving. Nigeria is on that list, so a Nigerian passport holder needs the visa for any visit. The Nigerian passport page has the wider picture.

The ETA is for non-visa nationals. Gov.uk says you usually need one rather than a visa if you are from Europe, the USA, Australia, Canada or certain other countries. The Rules record that the scheme opened in four waves, the last for travel on or after 2 April 2025, so it is fully in force for every listed nationality.

	Standard Visitor visa	ETA
Who	Visa nationals	Nationals on the ETA list
Fee	£135	£20
How	Online form, then an appointment in person	Online or the UK ETA app
Decision	Usually within 3 weeks	Usually within a day, up to 3 working days
Lasts	6 months (longer visas available)	2 years, or until the passport expires
Each stay	Up to 6 months	Up to 6 months

Two details worth knowing. An ETA does not guarantee entry. And gov.uk suggests that anyone previously refused entry to the UK, or with a criminal record, may want to apply for a visa even if their nationality does not need one.

The UK visa page shows which applies to your passport.

What it costs

These are the fees on the gov.uk application page, read on 30 September 2026. They match what we recorded on 19 September.

Visa	Fee	Maximum stay
Standard Visitor	£135	6 months
Standard Visitor, medical reasons	£234	11 months
Standard Visitor, academics	£234	12 months
2-year long-term	£506	6 months per visit
5-year long-term	£903	6 months per visit
10-year long-term	£1,128	6 months per visit

If passing through is your only reason for coming, a Visitor in Transit visa costs £74.50.

The fee is per person. Each family member needs their own application, their own fee and their own appointment. You can apply for a partner or child who cannot apply for themselves.

Long-term visas

The 2, 5 and 10-year visas are for people who visit regularly. Each stay is still capped at six months. Three conditions on the gov.uk page matter before you pay the higher fee:

• If you are under 18 when you apply, the visa is only valid until six months after your 18th birthday. The fee is not refunded.
• UKVI can give you a shorter visa than you asked for if it thinks you cannot meet the rules for the whole period. You do not get the difference back.
• The visa can be cancelled if your travel history shows you are living in the UK for extended periods through repeated visits.

The Home Office’s own caseworker guidance adds that where some doubt remains, officers should consider granting a shorter visa rather than refusing.

Paying for a faster decision

UKVI sells two faster services, on its faster decision page:

• Priority: £500 on top of the visa fee. Usually a decision within 5 working days.
• Super priority: £1,000 on top. Usually a decision by the end of the next working day after a weekday appointment.

You are offered them when you apply, if they are available to you. Each family member pays separately. If the application is refused, the priority fee is not refunded. Neither service changes the decision. It only changes when you get it.

How to apply

1. Apply online on gov.uk. The earliest you can apply is three months before you travel. You can save the form and come back to it.
2. Book an appointment at a visa application centre as part of the online application. The centre may be in another country, so allow for that.
3. Attend the appointment. You prove your identity with your passport, have your fingerprints and photo taken, and hand in your supporting documents. You get your passport back the same day.
4. Wait for an email. The Home Office emails you when a decision has been made.

Gov.uk’s visa application centre finder lists the centre for each country. The centres are run by contractors; gov.uk’s refund instructions name VFS Global and TLScontact. Whatever else a centre offers you, the visa fee is the one set on gov.uk.

The form asks for your travel dates, where you will stay, what the trip will cost, your income and any criminal or immigration history, and may ask for ten years of travel history.

Tuberculosis tests

Gov.uk’s TB page ties the test to longer stays: you need one if you are coming for six months or more and have lived in a listed country. Nigeria is on the list. The application page asks for a TB certificate if you are visiting for more than six months. For an ordinary visit of a few weeks, a TB test is not part of the application.

How long it takes

The application page says you will “usually get a decision on your visa within 3 weeks”. The Home Office’s processing times page, last updated 9 September 2026, lists Standard Visitor at 3 weeks.

The clock starts at your appointment, not when you submit the form. It can run longer if your documents need checking, you are asked for more evidence or an interview, or demand is high. The page says UKVI will contact you within the standard time if yours will take longer, and asks you not to contact it while you are still inside that time. Do not book travel you cannot cancel until you have a decision.

What you can and cannot do

The gov.uk overview lists what a Standard Visitor may do. The main ones:

• tourism and holidays
• visiting family or friends
• volunteering for up to 30 days with a registered charity
• certain business activities, such as meetings, conferences, negotiating and signing deals
• a recreational course of up to 30 days
• study at an accredited institution for up to six months
• medical treatment, if you can pay for it

And what you cannot do:

• paid or unpaid work for a UK company, or as self-employed, unless it is a permitted paid engagement
• claim public funds
• live in the UK for long periods through frequent or successive visits
• marry or register a civil partnership, or give notice of one. That needs a Marriage Visitor visa.

Most stays are capped at six months. You can extend beyond that only in a few cases, such as medical treatment, and an extension from inside the UK costs £1,172.

How the Home Office decides

The decision is made against Appendix V: Visitor of the Immigration Rules. The key paragraph is V 4.2. You must satisfy the decision maker that you are a genuine visitor, which means you:

• (a) will leave the UK at the end of your visit
• (b) will not live in the UK through frequent or successive visits, or make it your main home
• (c) are coming for a permitted purpose
• (d) will not do any prohibited activity
• (e) have enough money for all reasonable costs of the visit, including the journey home, without working or claiming public funds

Under V 4.3, someone else can pay for your travel, keep or accommodation only if they have a genuine professional or personal relationship with you, are not in breach of immigration law, and can and will support you for the whole stay. V 4.4 to V 4.6 set out what visitors must not intend to do, and the narrow list of UK payments they may receive. V 16.1 is blunt: if the requirements are met, the visa is granted; otherwise it is refused.

The Home Office’s caseworker guidance explains how officers apply that. The standard is the balance of probabilities: more likely than not. Officers look at:

• your immigration and travel history, including visits to other countries
• your finances and your family, social and economic background
• your personal and economic ties to the country you live in
• how much time you have spent in the UK over the past 12 months
• whether your stated reasons for the visit are credible given your circumstances

Travel that shows you complied with UK rules before, or visited the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the Schengen area or Switzerland, may count in your favour. Travel history is not meant to be the only consideration. A first-time traveller has to rely on other evidence. The guidance also says that where money has only recently arrived in an account, officers may check where it came from.

The documents the Home Office actually lists

The Home Office publishes a guide to supporting documents, last updated 25 February 2026. It says the list is not exhaustive and that no document guarantees a visa. For an ordinary visit it suggests:

• a valid passport
• evidence of your job or studies: a letter from your employer on headed paper giving your role, salary and length of employment, or a letter from your school or university
• for the self-employed, business registration documents or recent invoices
• previous passports showing travel to other countries
• proof of legal residence, if you are not a national of the country you are applying from
• financial documents that clearly show you have access to the funds, such as bank statements showing where the money came from

If a sponsor is paying, show what support they are giving, how, that they can afford it, your relationship to them and, if they are in the UK, their legal status there.

Documents not in English or Welsh need a full translation with the translator’s confirmation, the date, their name, signature and contact details.

The guide also lists documents that are less useful and that caseworkers are told not to consider if sent. They include hotel bookings, flight bookings (unless you are transiting), travel insurance, credit card statements, bank statements more than a year old, personal photographs, business cards and a sponsor’s utility or council tax bills. There is no point paying for a flight reservation just to put it in your file.

If you are refused

A refusal letter tells you what rights you have. The Home Office uses two templates for visit refusals: one for refusals with no right of appeal, and one for refusals that attract a right of appeal on human rights grounds. The appeals page lists the decisions that can go to the tribunal. An ordinary visit visa refusal is not among them. Only a refusal of a human rights claim is.

Administrative review is available only where your decision letter says so. Where it is, you apply within 28 days from outside the UK, it costs £80, and gov.uk warns it can currently take 12 months or more. Making any other application withdraws the review.

The visa fee is not refunded after a refusal. Nothing stops you applying again, but a new application is a new fee and is judged afresh. The useful thing to do first is read the reasons in the letter against V 4.2 and ask whether you can now show what was missing.

Gov.uk does not publish a page on challenging a visit refusal in the courts, so we do not describe one here. That is a question for a regulated immigration adviser.

Checklist

• Check whether your passport needs a visa, an ETA or neither on the UK visa page.
• Apply no earlier than three months before you travel, on gov.uk only.
• Pay £135 for a six-month visa, or £506, £903 or £1,128 for 2, 5 or 10 years.
• Decide on priority (£500) or super priority (£1,000) only if the date matters. It does not change the outcome.
• Book and attend the visa application centre appointment for fingerprints and photo.
• Bring a passport valid for your whole stay.
• Bring proof of job or studies, travel history and bank statements showing where the money came from.
• If someone is paying, bring their letter, proof of funds, relationship and UK status.
• Get certified translations of anything not in English or Welsh.
• Leave out hotel and flight bookings, insurance and credit card statements.
• Allow at least three weeks from the appointment, and do not buy non-refundable tickets before the decision.
• If refused, read the reasons against paragraph V 4.2 before you reapply.