High Potential Individual visa: eligibility, cap and cost
With a degree from a listed university awarded in the last 5 years, you get 2 years to work or look for work, 3 with a doctorate. Budget £3,202 for the two-year visa, Ecctis check and surcharge.
High Potential Individual visa: fee and surcharge
Total to pay when you apply
£2,950
High Potential Individual · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026
| Person | Fee | Surcharge |
|---|---|---|
| Main applicant | £880 | £2,070 |
| Application fees | £880 |
| Health surcharge (2 years) | £2,070 |
| Total | £2,950 |
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 High Potential Individual (HPI) visa gives graduates of top-ranked universities outside the UK 2 years of permission, or 3 years for a PhD or other doctorate, without a job offer or a sponsor. The degree must be at bachelor's level or above, awarded in the 5 years before you apply, by an institution on the Home Office global universities list for the year of your award; the current list, for awards from 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026, names 80 universities. You pay £252 to Ecctis to confirm the qualification, the £880 visa fee and the health surcharge for the whole stay, £2,070 for two years or £3,105 for three, and hold £1,270 of savings unless you have lived here for 12 months. The route is capped each application year, 1 November to 31 October. It cannot be extended, does not lead to settlement and can be used only once, so any longer stay depends on switching to another visa before it ends.
Checking the universities list for your award year
Eligibility depends on the list in force when your degree was awarded, not when you apply. The Home Office publishes one list per award year, each running from 1 November to 31 October, and keeps the older ones online so that a 2022 graduate is judged against the 2022 list. The edition covering awards from 1 November 2025 has 80 institutions in 15 countries and territories, 33 of them in the United States; the rest are in China, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Belgium and Denmark. Universities in the UK are never on it: a UK graduate looks at the Graduate visa instead.
The list is built from global university rankings, so a university can enter or leave from one year to the next. The award date that counts is the one Ecctis confirms. Ecctis checks that the qualification is genuine and at UK bachelor's, master's or doctoral level; it does not check whether the institution is on the list, which is your job before you pay.
Cost and money to show
The visa fee is £880 whether you apply from abroad or switch inside the country. The surcharge is paid up front for the full grant: £2,070 for 2 years at £1,035 a year, £3,105 for 3. With the Ecctis fee, a single applicant on the two-year visa pays £3,202 and a doctoral graduate £4,237. A partner joining you pays the same visa fee and surcharge, so a couple on the two-year visa pays £5,900 to the Home Office. The savings test is £1,270 for you, held for 28 consecutive days, plus £285 for a partner and £315 for a first child.
English is tested at B2 in reading, writing, speaking and listening, unless you are a national of one of the listed majority English-speaking countries or your degree was taught in English and Ecctis confirms it.
The yearly limit and the one-time rule
The number of HPI visas is capped for each application year, from 1 November to 31 October. GOV.UK does not publish the figure in the guidance; if the allocation is used up, the online form tells you before you pay. Apply early in your eligibility window rather than late, since an award approaching the 5-year limit leaves no room to wait for the next year's allocation.
The route can be used once in a lifetime. You are also excluded if you have already held a Graduate visa or a Doctorate Extension Scheme permission. That makes the order of applications matter for someone with both a listed overseas degree and a UK master's.
After two or three years
There is no extension and no settlement on this visa, and the time does not count as residence when you later apply for indefinite leave to remain. Before it expires you can switch from inside the country, for example to a Skilled Worker visa once an employer offers a sponsored job meeting the salary threshold, or to the Global Talent visa if their record supports an endorsement. Meanwhile you can work in almost any job, be self-employed and do voluntary work; professional sport is the exception.