The United Kingdom, an island nation with a long history, has played an important role in world history and is home to many natural and cultural attractions worth visiting. The UK joined the European Union early on, but it often remained out of step with continental Europe on many issues, eventually leading to the referendum on leaving the EU. Since the UK began the Brexit process, however, the British pound has generally continued to weaken. With the exchange rate now only around 1.25:1 against the US dollar, this is a great time to visit the UK! Fortunately, compared with some notoriously picky countries (such as Japan and the Schengen Area), the UK visa application has much lighter document requirements. The preparation is not complicated, and processing is relatively fast, though you do have to appear in person once for fingerprinting. If you are short on time, it can be completed in as little as one week. In this post, I’ll share my own experience applying for a UK visa.

Documents Required for the Application

You can only begin a UK visa application within 90 days of your trip; you cannot apply earlier than that. Here is the list of documents you need to prepare for a UK visa application:

  • I-94 (if yours is electronic, you can print it here)
  • A copy of proof of your legal status in the US (such as an I-20 or DS-2019 for students, an I-797 for work visa holders, a green card, etc.)
  • Proof of finances (such as bank statements or an employment verification letter showing income)

The list is surprisingly short: you do not need to prepare photos, book flights or hotels in advance, and there is no cumbersome insurance requirement like in the Schengen Area.

UK Visa Application Process

Complete the Application Form Online

The first step in applying for a UK visa is filling out the application form online. Go to this page and register an account, then you can start a new application. Although the UK does not require many paper documents, the visa application form itself is not short. Set aside some time to complete it. For where you will stay in the UK, you can simply enter the hotel where you plan to stay. There is nothing especially tricky otherwise; I only filled out the required fields and left most optional sections blank.

For the visa type, I recommend the 6-month Short Term General Visitor visa. The reason is simple: cost. The cheapest 6-month UK visa costs $113, while the 2-year visa costs $429 and the 5-year visa costs a whopping $780. Unless you travel to the UK frequently, there is really no need to spend so much extra for a long-validity visa. After finishing the form, remember to review everything carefully before submitting. You will then be taken to the payment page. No payment, no appointment! Be sure to use a credit card with no foreign transaction fee (such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve). Even though the charge is billed in US dollars, the transaction is processed in London, UK, so a card with foreign transaction fees may still charge around 3%.

Biometrics Appointment

After you pay, you can schedule your appointment. If you are in or near a major city, you can choose a VFS Premium Application Centre for fingerprinting and mailing your application. However, VFS pricing is far from friendly, ranging from $240 to $1,600. Although VFS claims they can help expedite your application, in my experience the UK consulate is already very efficient. Click here to check the current official visa processing times. So unless your visa is extremely urgent, I do not recommend using VFS’s premium paid services, nor do I recommend booking at a VFS application center.

So if not VFS, where can you go for fingerprints? On the appointment page, you will see many USCIS Application Support Centers (ASC). That’s right: the UK outsources fingerprint collection to USCIS. ASC offices are widely available, and in most cases you should be able to find one within a few hours’ drive. Best of all, fingerprinting at an ASC does not cost anything extra. Just choose a convenient time and make an appointment.

Be sure to print the application form from the previous step online (you do not need to bring it to the biometrics appointment) and your appointment confirmation. For the fingerprinting appointment itself, bring your appointment confirmation and your passport. The ASC I visited was not especially busy, and I was called in after just 10 minutes. The ASC staff were quite efficient: first they took a photo (this becomes your visa photo), then they scanned my fingerprints. As an aside, ASC fingerprint collection was more thorough than what I had experienced for US visas or entry inspection. After placing each finger on the scanner, I also had to roll it side to side so the scanner could capture the prints from both sides of the finger as well. Once everything was done, the ASC stamped the appointment confirmation, which then became your Biometrics Receipt, so keep it safe. The ASC will also give you a handout explaining what to do next.

Prepare and Mail Your Application Packet

After your biometrics appointment, you have only 5 days to mail out your application materials. Otherwise, your biometrics will expire. So I recommend doing it right away and not procrastinating. First, go to the VFS payment page to pay for the UPS Next Day return shipping label that the consulate will use to send your passport back to you. It costs a little over $30. Print the UPS label; the Tracking number on it can be used to track your return package.

The full list of materials to mail out is:

  • Your passport;
  • The visa application form you printed earlier, signed;
  • Your biometrics receipt (the stamped appointment confirmation);
  • The UPS label you just printed;
  • Other supporting documents (I-94, proof of legal status in the US, proof of finances, travel itinerary)
  • Optional documents (hotel and flight reservations)

You can find the official document checklist here. I did not provide hotel or flight reservations, and the visa was issued without any problems. I also did not provide photos. The checklist specifically says not to send photos to the consulate unless requested.

You can use any method you like to mail your packet to the consulate. Since I was not in a rush, I used USPS Priority Mail with 3-day delivery. I mailed my materials on January 18 (after fingerprinting on January 17), and tracking showed that the consulate received them on Monday of the following week (January 23). Then, on Friday of that same week, I received an email titled "Your UK Visa xxxx has been printed." UPS showed that the package was shipped out that very day.

Receiving the Passport Back

As expected, on the Monday after the package was sent out (January 30), I received the delivery containing my passport along with some of the documents I had submitted. The visa validity start date was the intended entry date I had entered in the application. The visa was valid for 6 months.

Finally, in a rather unwelcome “surprise,” the UK consulate also included another visa applicant’s passport in my package. Since calling the UK visa office costs money, I had to contact UK Visas & Immigration via their online email form, and by phone as well. It took a week before I was able to return the passport to the UK consulate. If not for that strange incident, I probably would not have had any direct interaction with anyone at the consulate during the entire application process.

The Visa

And finally, here is the UK visa I received (with sensitive information obscured).

Feel free to share your own unique visa application experiences in the comments.