Health care surcharge

Stage 2
1

This may be somewhat obvious, but still thought of asking…

If I pay the healthcare surcharge for 5 years while applying for my stage 2, and then apply for ILR after 3 years, will my payment cover the first two years during my ILR?

1 Like
2

Good question, seniors please suggest.

3

Once you get ILR, health care surcharge gets out of picture. ILR holders don’t pay the charge. This doesn’t mean that the charge for extra 2 years that you will pay for will be refunded to you. So, unless you have surplus money to spare, you should only pay for 3 years by applying for 3 years.

1 Like
4

Yes, thats make sense. If you will get the ILR after 3 years so why you are paying for 5 years?

1 Like
5

@Bubun I was checking this recently. if you search IHS refund, the info and page should come to you😉

'You will not get a refund if:

your visa application is successful but you do not come to the UK
you leave the UK before your visa ends, for example to make a new application
you’re told to leave the UK before your visa expires
you’re applying for indefinite leave to remain’

6

I can understand, IHS fees for 3 years is enough if plan to apply ILR after 3 years.

But still I have a question.

  1. will affect the dependent visa?
  2. I believe if main applicant pay IHS for 3 years then definitely main applicant visa valid only for 3 years then how dependent spouse and child will apply for 5 years visa (because dependent can apply for ILR after 5 years)
7

You can always apply 3 years for everyone now and then extend the visas for your dependents in 3 years time. That would allow you to save on surcharge for yourself for the extra 2 years.

In that case, you pay the visa fees (£152 per person) 2 times but you get to save on your IHS surcharge. You need to do the trade off and see which one you are better off with. Also paying for NHS surcharge now itself prevents you from losing out from any increases in the future (it went up from £400 to £650 per person last year. Wouldn’t be surprised if it goes up again before 2024.)

In my case, I chose to get enough visa to cover all of us to ILR, because it was cheaper than going through 2 rounds of visa applications (and deal with higher NHS surcharge in future).

1 Like
8

Painfully dependents will have to apply for extension if they haven’t spend 5 years

9

Hello,

If I understood correctly, If I am granted visa up to 3 years, I can choose to apply initially for 2 years and pay for NHS for 2 years at once (624 *2). After 2 years, I will have to apply for 1 year extension but this time, I have to pay for visa fee + 1 year of health surcharge?

10

Yes @Alp_Utku - your understanding seems consistent with my understanding.

11

Yep, this is correct. If you do not pay all (3) years up front (if you have an Exceptional Promise visa), you will have to pay the visa fee + x# years of NHS surcharge for whatever years you did not initially pay for.