Price transparency for immigration applications
Immigration applications and advice, excluding asylum work. In practice: entry clearance and leave-to-remain applications, settlement (indefinite leave to remain), naturalisation and registration as a British citizen. If your firm's website offers this service, Rule 1 of the SRA Transparency Rules sets out exactly what price information the site must publish.
Sources last verified: 2026-08-14.1 — official SRA links are cited in each section.
Does this apply to your firm?
Any regulated firm offering immigration services (other than asylum) on its website. Because Home Office fees change and application types vary enormously in complexity, this is the area where a single headline price is least defensible.
What must be published for immigration applications
- Fees — or ranges — broken down by application type: partner and family visas, work routes, visitor visas, settlement, naturalisation. One figure spanning all of these does not show a reader what their matter costs.
- What drives a matter to the top of a range: dependants, previous refusals, missing documentation, interviews.
- Whether Home Office application fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge are included in your figures — they are almost always payable in addition, and the page should say so in terms.
- Whether VAT applies, including your stated assumption where clients are outside the UK and the VAT treatment may differ.
- The experience and qualifications of the people doing the work and their supervisors.
- Key stages and likely timescales — with an honest caveat that Home Office processing times are outside your control, and where readers can check current service standards.
Official source: SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance · Sources last verified: 2026-08-11
Disbursements to describe
Disbursements are costs payable to third parties that your firm handles on the client's behalf. The rule expects them described and priced (or ranged) — for this service that typically means:
- Home Office application fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge (if you treat them as disbursements rather than exclusions — either way, state the treatment).
- Interpreter and certified translation fees, with typical hourly or per-document costs.
- Independent expert reports (for example country or medical evidence) where a route commonly needs them.
- Priority or premium service fees where the client opts to pay them.
For every disbursement, say whether VAT applies to it — mixing VAT-inclusive fees with VAT-silent third-party costs is one of the most frequent findings on otherwise careful pages.
Common gaps on live sites
“Immigration services from £800” covering everything from a visitor visa to settlement — the guidance expects pricing a reader can map to their application.
Silence on Home Office fees and the health surcharge, leaving the true cost of the application invisible.
No VAT position stated for overseas clients.
Asylum work not carved out, implying the published prices cover it when the rule (and usually the firm's pricing) does not.
Timescales either absent or stated as firm promises the Home Office can't support.
These are patterns seen across real firm websites — none of them implies bad faith. Pages get edited, calculators break, and requirements written for lawyers get trimmed by marketing. That's an argument for checking the live page regularly, not for blame.
Is your immigration applications page still saying what it should?
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