A UK Student Visa Decision Usually Takes Three Weeks, and the English Test Comes First
Applications open six months before the course begins, the fee is £558, and nationals of a long list of countries are exempt from the English requirement altogether.
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The offer arrives in the spring and the course starts in September, and somewhere in between sits a visa application nobody in the family has made before. The dates are less forgiving than they look, and the part most likely to hold everything up is not the visa itself. It is the English test that has to be settled before the application goes in.
A UK student visa decision usually takes three weeks if the application is made from outside the UK, and eight weeks if it is made from inside. Those are two separate figures for two separate situations, not a range. Applications from abroad can be submitted from six months before the course starts; from inside the UK, three months. The fee is £558, whether the application is a first one from abroad, an extension or a switch from another visa.
Applying From Inside Britain Carries an Extra Rule
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