Global Talent visa: endorsement, cost and settlement
The fee is £766 in total: £561 for the endorsement and £205 for the visa, or the whole sum at once if a listed prize replaces the endorsement. The health surcharge comes on top.
Global Talent visa: fee and surcharge for your stay
Total to pay when you apply
£5,941
Global Talent, endorsement + visa · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026
| Person | Fee | Surcharge |
|---|---|---|
| Main applicant | £766 | £5,175 |
| Application fees | £766 |
| Health surcharge (5 years) | £5,175 |
| Total | £5,941 |
Calculated in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere. Not legal advice; not affiliated with the Home Office.
Published by Radif Partners · How we calculate · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026, rules checked 13 October 2026
The Global Talent visa is for leaders and potential leaders in academia or research, arts and culture (including architecture, fashion, film and television, and since HC 1691 a wider design pathway) and digital technology. There is no job offer, no sponsor and no minimum salary: you can work for any employer, change jobs freely or be self-employed. Most applicants first ask an endorsing body to confirm "exceptional talent" or "exceptional promise", paying £561, then apply for the visa within three months and pay £205. A named winner of a prize on the Home Office list skips the endorsement and pays £766 with the visa. Partners and children pay £766 each. You choose the length of each grant, from one to five years, and pay the health surcharge for it, £1,035 a year per adult. Settlement follows after 3 years for research endorsements, exceptional talent and prize winners, and after 5 years for exceptional promise in arts or digital technology.
Endorsement or prize
The two-stage route is the usual one. Stage one is the endorsement application, judged by the body for your field against the evidence listed in Appendix Global Talent: a CV, three dated letters of recommendation from well-established organisations or experts (at least one of them based in the UK for arts, architecture, design and fashion), and proof such as international awards, significant media coverage or work exhibited, published or distributed in more than one country. Stage two is the visa application itself, which must follow within three months of the endorsement letter. You can also file both at the same time.
The shortcut is a prestigious prize. The Home Office publishes a list in Appendix Global Talent: Prestigious Prizes; only the named prizes count, not other awards from the same institution, and you must be the named winner. Caseworkers check public sources and only ask you for proof if they cannot confirm the win. The fee is the same £766, paid in one go.
Fields and who judges them
Academia and research endorsements come from the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering or UKRI. Some candidates qualify by fast track: a peer-reviewed fellowship on the published list, a qualifying appointment, or critical work on a grant from an endorsed funder. HC 1691 (5 March 2026) simplified the appointments track to cover PhD-level posts at approved higher education or research institutions with research or innovation as a primary function or leadership duties. Arts and culture has a general track and separate tracks for architecture, fashion design and film and television; in film, a BAFTA or at least two main-award nominations in the last 15 years can carry an application. The design pathway added by the same Statement of Changes covers design roles that previously had no home on the route. Digital technology applicants show recognition in the last five years and three letters from experts who have known their work for at least 12 months.
What it costs for one year or five
Because the surcharge is charged per year of the grant, the length you pick drives the bill. A single applicant from abroad pays £1,801 for one year and £5,941 for five, of which £5,175 is surcharge. A couple with one child taking three years pays £2,298 in fees and £8,538 in surcharge, £10,836 in total, the child at the reduced £776 a year. There is no maintenance requirement to show and no English test for the visa itself.
Every extension costs £766 again, inside or outside the country, for one to five more years, and has one condition of its own: payslips or other evidence that you earned money in your endorsed field (or the field of your prize) during the last grant. An endorsement withdrawn by the endorsing body ends the possibility of extending on it.
Settling after three or five years
Under GT 11.1 and 11.2 of the rules, the qualifying period is 3 years if you were endorsed by the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering or UKRI, endorsed for exceptional talent in arts and culture or digital technology, or admitted on a prize; it is 5 years for exceptional promise. Time as a Skilled Worker, Innovator Founder, Scale-up or several other routes counts towards it, but not time as a dependant. You also need continuous residence (no more than 180 days abroad in any 12 months), English at B1 before 26 March 2027 and B2 from that date, the Life in the UK test and the ILR fee of £3,226. The ILR calculator has a three-year and a five-year Global Talent setting.