How much does British permanent residency cost? Apart from £3,226, are there any other fees?

How much does it cost to get permanent residency in the UK? The only three official costs that can be checked are: £3,226 for the domestic permanent residency application fee, Life in the UK Test £50, and the B1 speaking and listening test costing around £160. Altogether, it's over £3,400, which is an unavoidable part once you reach the submission stage.

The rest are all multiple-choice questions, and the two people's total expenditures differ by several thousand pounds, with almost all the difference coming from the multiple-choice questions.

Three installments of hard money for permanent residency, plus one payment that does not need to be paid.

£3,226 This amount was set by the fee schedule starting April 8, 2026, an increase of £197 from the previous level of £3,029. In the October fee schedule update, the domestic permanent residency line remained unchanged.

The price of B1 varies among different providers. The GESE Grade 5 of Trinity is £160 starting from April 1, 2026; for IELTS Life Skills B1, the common quotation within the UK ranges from £150 to £209, varying according to the city where the test center is located. There is no priority between the two exams, but the score of Life in the UK has no expiration date, while language scores have recognition conditions that need to be verified, so the timing of spending these two amounts is not equivalent.

The line in the official fee table says "Indefinite leave to remain — main applicant and dependants £3,226," which sounds like a package deal for the main applicant and dependants. In fact, it is £3,226 per person, including one for the spouse and one for each child. There is no discounted rate for minors, nor is there a maximum family total. Applying for a family of three at the same time would cost £9,678. The English and knowledge of life tests for the three people are charged separately (children under 18 are not subject to these two requirements). There are indeed free cases, but that is another set of eligibility criteria: applicants for settlement under Appendix Victim of Domestic Abuse who can provide evidence of inability to pay may be exempt from fees, and this is unrelated to the regular route.

The £500 tier and the £1,000 tier, the difference is not 500 pounds.

The urgent service page for GOV.UK clearly states two levels: Priority £500, Super Priority £1,000, both are added on top of the application fee.

The part that is easy to skip is the time limit sentence. The £500 Priority service promises 5 working days for general visa applications, but it says usually 30 working days for settlement and naturalization applications; the £1,000 Super Priority is the one that gives a result by the next working day after collecting biometric information. Both options are charged per person, so a family of four buying Super Priority would pay £4,000.

My judgment is that the £500 option is the least cost-effective of the three options for settlement application. The standard service level of the regular category is 6 months, which is indeed much shorter than 30 working days, but it neither provides a definite date nor addresses the needs of those who are really in a hurry. Those with strict time pressure (changing jobs, buying and transferring property, family surgery) should go directly for £1,000; others can save the money without spending a penny, keeping this amount as the risk fund mentioned later.

Urgent processing only affects the speed of the decision, not the review standards. When there are gaps in the documents, £1,000 often gets you a faster request for additional documents.

It's the additional licensing that truly expands the budget.

A few scattered notes first:

Life in the UK does not require re-payment of £50, no discount for number of times. Biometric data collection is at UKVCAS service points. Core service points have free appointment slots, but popular cities' slots are quickly booked up. Additional service points and VIP time slots are charged separately. Commercial pricing ranges from tens to two hundred pounds. Upload all materials in advance in your account, otherwise there will be on-site scanning fees, which is easy to miss.

The real big part is elsewhere.

If the number of days absent exceeds the limit when reaching five years, or if the salary and job conditions are temporarily not met, the result is not just a delay in permanent residency by a few months, but rather needing to purchase a new work visa sponsorship first. According to the fee schedule starting April 8, 2026, applying within the country, CoS renewing for Skilled Worker with more than three years is £1,865 (£1,235 for jobs on the Immigration Salary List, £628 for Health and Care category), plus three years standard category IHS £1,035×3＝£3,105, totaling nearly £5,000, and during this period, the £3,226 payment was not saved at all. Therefore, the priority of the budget should be: first ensure that the five years are not compromised, then consider whether to expedite.

People who are out of the country for 永居计算器 days can use the XX0YY app to calculate the number of absences in each 12-month rolling window by day, then decide their travel plans; if unsure whether they have already exceeded the limit, spend £5 on justiscript.com to get a written response from a UK-qualified lawyer within 24 hours, which is much cheaper than buying a new period of permission.

Also list the next step's fees: applying for naturalization after permanent residency is £1,709, and the citizenship ceremony is £130. These two fees must be at least 12 months apart from the permanent residency fee, no need to prepare them at the same time.

All fees are calculated based on the standard on the day of online submission, and old prices will not be recognized when the fee schedule is updated. £3,226 will not be refunded if the application is rejected or deemed invalid, so it is much more stable to pay after confirming the English test results, Life in the UK test results, and absence days, rather than paying first and then submitting additional documents.

This article is for reference only. For specific issues, please consult a licensed attorney.

[Data source] Home Office immigration and nationality fees (8 April 2026 / 8 October 2026 fee table): www.gov.uk/government/publications/visa-regulations-revised-table/home-office-immigration-and-nationality-fees-8-april-2026; Get a faster decision on your visa, settlement or citizenship application: www.gov.uk/faster-decision-visa-settlement; Pay for UK healthcare as part of your immigration application: www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-much-pay

Dealing with a UK legal matter? JustiScript can help