How Much Does an Immigration Solicitor Cost?

Do You Need an Immigration Solicitor?

You are not required to use a solicitor for any UK visa application. Many people successfully apply on their own using the guidance on GOV.UK.

Whether professional advice would help in your particular case is a question about your facts, and answering it is immigration advice — which is exactly the thing only a regulated person may give. So we do not answer it. What follows is the part that is a matter of published fact.

Why This Page Has No Price List

Immigration advice fees are not published by anyone. They are not set by the government, not capped by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and not capped by the Immigration Advice Authority. Every firm and every registered adviser sets its own, and the amount turns on the scope of the work, not on the name of the visa route.

That is why you will find wildly different ranges quoted around the internet: none of them has a source behind it. Two firms describing the same “spouse visa application” may be selling a document review and a full end-to-end representation, which are not comparable pieces of work at any price.

The figures that are published are the government’s own, and those are worth knowing before you add professional fees on top:

• Family visa as a partner, parent or child: £2,064 from outside the UK, £1,407 inside, per person
• Skilled Worker from outside the UK: £819 for 3 years or less, £1,618 for longer
• Settlement: £3,226 per person
• Naturalisation: £1,839, being £1,709 to apply and a £130 ceremony fee
• Student: £558, inside or outside the UK

The healthcare surcharge is separate again: £1,035 a year, or £776 for students, their dependants, Youth Mobility applicants and under-18s.

Fixed Fees and Hourly Rates

Both models are used, and the difference is about where the risk of the work taking longer sits.

Fixed fees

A fixed fee gives you the total in advance, but it is defined by a scope of work. The questions worth asking are what is inside that scope, what happens if the Home Office asks for more documents, and whether an administrative review or an appeal is included or is a new instruction at a new price.

Hourly rates

An hourly rate makes the total depend on how long the work takes. The useful questions are the rate, an estimate of the hours, whether there is a cap, and whether you will be told before the estimate is exceeded.

In both cases, ask whether the quote includes VAT and whether Home Office fees, the healthcare surcharge, courier costs and translation costs are inside or outside it. Ask for it in writing before you instruct anyone.

Appeals and Judicial Review

Challenging a refusal is a different kind of work from making an application, and no published fee scale covers it either. An appeal goes to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber); a judicial review is a challenge to the lawfulness of a decision and is heard in the Upper Tribunal or the High Court. Not every refusal carries a right of appeal. See our visa refused guide for what the decision letter tells you about which options exist.

Who Is Allowed to Give Immigration Advice

This is the part with a hard rule behind it. GOV.UK says: “All immigration advisers must be registered with IAA or be a member of an approved professional body.” The approved professional bodies it names are the Law Society, the Law Society of Scotland, the Law Society of Northern Ireland, the Bar Council, the Faculty of Advocates and the Bar of Northern Ireland.

The Immigration Advice Authority took over from the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner on 16 January 2025. Guidance and articles written before that date use the old name; it is the same regulator.

You can search the register through the GOV.UK find an immigration adviser service, or the Immigration Advice Authority directly. Solicitors appear on the Solicitors Regulation Authority register. GOV.UK puts the consequence plainly: “You cannot get your money back if an adviser is not regulated.”

Beyond regulation, what is worth checking:

• What the firm actually does: immigration law is a specialism, and a general practice may not do much of it.
• Experience of the route: the evidence a family visa turns on has little in common with what a Global Talent endorsement turns on.
• What the fee covers, in writing. A quote that does not define the work cannot be compared with another quote.
• No outcome promises. No adviser, however good, controls the decision.

Warning Signs

• Guaranteed outcomes. A guaranteed grant is not something anyone is in a position to sell.
• Not on a register. Under sections 84 to 91 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, providing immigration advice or services in the United Kingdom while unqualified is a criminal offence. The registers exist so you can check in a minute, and GOV.UK warns you cannot get your money back from an unregulated adviser.
• Pressure to pay immediately. A quote you cannot take away and think about is not a quote.
• A fee with no written scope.
• Hard to reach before you pay.

Other Routes to Advice

• Applying without an adviser. No application requires one. GOV.UK publishes the requirements for every route, and our document checklists set out what each asks for.
• Advisers registered with the Immigration Advice Authority. Registration is at levels, and an adviser may only work at the level and in the categories they are registered for — the register shows both. Level 1 covers straightforward applications; the higher levels cover casework and representation.
• Charities and not-for-profit advice services. Some are registered with the Immigration Advice Authority and give advice free. They are on the same register, so you can check them the same way.
• Legal aid. In England and Wales it covers a narrow set of immigration matters, mainly asylum, detention and certain cases involving domestic abuse and trafficking. Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own schemes on different rules.

For a full picture of all immigration costs beyond solicitor fees, see our hidden costs of immigration guide and complete UK visa fees guide.

Questions and answers