The visa processing time by the country has been brought back to under 15 days and priority visas will be processed within a period of only 5 days
The UK government has reduced the processing time for visa applications within the standard of 15 days for Indian nationals, the British High Commissioner Alex Ellis said in a tweet on December 16. The visa processing time by the country has been brought back to under 15 days and priority visas will be processed within a period of only 5 days.
After the reopening of country’s border post Covid-19 pandemic, the UK has been struggling with processing a huge influx of immigration visas and has been going on with a backlog in all sorts of visas, including work, travel and student visas and citizens were regularly been asked to reschedule their visit to the country.
“Good news for those travelling from India to UK- visit visas now within standard time of 15 working days (with a small number of trickier cases taking longer). Extra slots for student visas have also been opened up to keep up with the January, 2023 intake. Please apply as quickly as you can because there is a lot of demand. Make sure you provide the right information. Check what information we are asking for, and make sure you provide it.”
— Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner
Alex Ellis informed that the number of Indian nationals applying for a student visa shot up by 89% in the year ending June 2022 compared to the previous year. Not just student visas, the number of work visas applied by skilled Indian workers in the year ending in June 2022 went up by a whopping 148% to 1.03 lakh in numbers, compared to the year before that.
According to data, over 2.58 lakh Indian nationals applied for visit visas in the June 2022 ending year, which marked a whopping 630% rise in the number of visas applied in the year prior, majorly due to strict travel restrictions across the globe to control the spread of Covid-19 cases.
Given the current upsurge in the number of visa applications of Indian nationals received by the UK, India has toppled China and now constitutes the largest nationality being issued sponsored study visas in the UK.
As for expediting the general visa processing time for Indian nationals to under 15 days, Alex Ellis said, “Good news for those travelling from India to UK- visit visas now within standard time of 15 working days (with a small number of trickier cases taking longer). Extra slots for student visas have also been opened up to keep up with the January, 2023 intake. Please apply as quickly as you can because there is a lot of demand. Make sure you provide the right information. Check what information we are asking for, and make sure you provide it.”
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