On the day your permanent residence is approved, you will have 11 months left on your work permit. Those 11 months of IHS - which is close to at standard rates and £950 - won't be refunded a penny.
This is a question people ask backstage every year, and it’s also the most easily misjudged rule. There are many Chinese posts on the Internet saying that "if you take permanent residence in advance, you can get a pro-rata refund of the remaining IHS", but the official page of GOV.UK clearly states "Application for permanent residence (indefinite leave to remain)" in the non-refundable column.
Do I need to pay IHS when applying for British permanent residence (ILR)? Need not
Let me make this premise clear first: permanent residence (settlement) applications do not accept IHS. What you pay is the application fee - £3,226 per person from 8 April 2026, plus £19.20 for biometric information collection, expedited. There is no medical surcharge column on the form, because after you get permanent residence, your status in front of NHS changes, and you are no longer a "time-limited stay immigrant".
Before this, every time you renew or transfer your visa, you have to pay IHS in advance for the entire period of leave. The current annual rate is effective from February 6, 2024, and the price adjustment in April 2026 does not change it:
The standard rate for adults is £1,035/year; for students, students’ accompanying family members, Youth Mobility holders, and children under 18 years of age at the time of application, £776/year. Each applicant is billed separately, four for a family of four.
After the permanent residence is approved, why can’t the IHS for the remaining period of the visa be refunded?
Many people’s intuition is: I paid 3 years of medical expenses in advance, and got permanent residence in the 2nd year. The remaining 1 year should be refunded to me in proportion. This logic holds true in commercial insurance, but not in the IHS system.
The legal basis for IHS is The Immigration (Health Charge) Order 2015. Its design logic is "charge according to the leave period you are granted by ", rather than "charge according to how much you actually use". Therefore, once the visa has been approved and IHS has been corresponding to that period of leave, no matter whether you get permanent residence in advance, leave the UK in advance, or be curtailed (shortened residence), your money will not be turned back. Clause 8 of the Order does give the Home Office the power to reduce or refund at its discretion, but that is a very narrow exception, not a regular channel, so don’t count on it.
There is another technical detail worth remembering: IHS is calculated and refunded in units of for a full 6 months of . Even if you are in a refundable situation, you cannot get back any fraction left for less than 6 months.
IHS Refund Comparison Table: What can be refunded and how much can be refunded (recommended screenshots)
| Your situation | Canwithdraw from | ? How much is refunded from? |
|---|---|---|
| visa application was rejected | can be | full amount |
| proactively withdraws | before the result is released, and can receive | in full |
| Repeat payment of | for the same application can result in an overpayment of | of |
| is shorter than the application period of | , | can be refunded | in full for 6 months.
| Accompanying family members are rejected alone. | can be | and the family member’s share is | .
| permanent residence (ILR) is approved, the original visa has remaining | but cannot | 0 |
| visa is withdrawn after approval / | cannot come to the UK without | 0 |
| left the UK early / visa was shortened | cannot | 0 |
| transfers to visa category | that is exempt from IHS but cannot | 0 |
IHS Do I need to apply for a refund myself? What should I do if I don’t get my account in 6 weeks?
For the "refundable" types in the table above, will be automatically refunded, and you don't need to do anything . The money will be returned to the original card or account from which the payment was made, usually within 6 weeks after the decision is made.
Three practical reminders:
🔹 Whoever paid will get the money refunded. If your employer, parents or friends used the card for you, the refund will go into their account, not yours. Talk it over before applying to avoid embarrassment later.
🔹 Don’t be in a hurry to cancel that card. Many international students change banks or countries after graduation. Once the payment card is cancelled, the refund process will be stuck, and it will take several weeks to reconnect.
🔹 If has not been credited to for more than 6 weeks, follow up through UKVI’s online consultation channel. Have the IHS reference number (the string of numbers starting with IHS), application number and payment date ready when submitting. Without these three things, customer service will basically be unable to investigate.
Medical work permit and EU students: two independent IHS refund channels
These two types of people do not follow the automatic process above. must take the initiative to apply online, and if they do not apply, there will be no .
The first category is for people working in NHS, public health services or adult social care settings (including medical professionals who obtained a Tier 2 visa before 31 March 2020). The rules are: IHS paid on or after March 31, 2020, will be refunded in full to ; those paid before then will be refunded for each complete 6-month period after that date. This money is applied for repeatedly in 6-month instalments - many people only receive the first installment and then forget about the rest, leaving it there in vain.
The second category is students from the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein holding EHIC or S1 forms: fees paid on or after January 1, 2024 can apply for a refund of online, and even if the visa started earlier, the refund will be retroactive to January 1, 2024.
People who only have one or two years left before permanent residence, how can they pay less IHS
Since the overpayment cannot be refunded, the only action that can save money occurs before applies for renewal - because IHS is prepaid according to the leave period you applied for.
Typical scenario: Your Skilled Worker’s 5-year residence period is 14 months short of expiration. When renewing your visa, your employer habitually issues a 3-year CoS. You have to pay IHS (£3,105) for 3 years in advance, and none of the remaining 22 months after you get permanent residence will be refunded. If the employer extends CoS to 2 years, there will be a shortfall of £1,035 in the account.
Of course, this comes at a cost: leave is opened for too short a time. Once your permanent residence application is rejected or delayed, your buffer period will be gone by . My opinion is this - unless you are very confident about the date when you will meet the criteria, leaving a margin of 6 to 12 months is worth more than saving that thousand pounds. How to calculate this account depends on the number of days you have been out of the country, whether your salary is over the line, and whether the employer's guarantee is stable. If you are not sure, spend £5 on justiscript.com and ask a British lawyer to give you a written reply within 24 hours. It is more reliable than asking around on the forum. As for the specific date when the permanent residence conditions are met, use the 永居计算器 APP to calculate to the day, and then go back and discuss the CoS length with the employer.
This article is for reference only. Rates and rules are subject to the latest announcement of GOV.UK. Please consult a licensed attorney for specific questions.
📌 Conclusion in one sentence: IHS Whether you save this money or not depends on the moment before you press "Submit for renewal"; after submitting, no matter how quickly you get your permanent residence, you cannot get it back. Many people spend their energy on calling for refunds after their permanent residence is approved, but the direction is wrong from the beginning.
The comparison table above is suitable for two kinds of people to save and look at: those who are struggling with how many years it will take to renew their visa, and those who have already paid IHS and are still waiting for automatic refund. Especially if you have friends who work in NHS or social care institutions - for their fully refundable money, you need to apply for it every 6 months. If you miss it, you will really miss it.
💬 I would like to ask: When you renewed your visa last time, was the visa approval period the same as what you applied for? Has anyone been short-approved and actually received that partial refund? How many weeks did it take to arrive? Let’s talk in the comment area. This data is actually more valuable than the official statement of “usually 6 weeks”.
Here is a permanent residence rule every day - how to count the number of days out of the country, in what order to prepare materials, which amount of money can be refunded and which cannot, and will continue to be updated until the day you submit it.
[Data source] gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/refunds; gov.uk/apply-immigration-health-surcharge-refund; gov.uk/government/publications/visa-regulations-revised-table
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