Section A: What Is a Fee Waiver Application?
A fee waiver is an in-UK affordability request linked to human rights-based leave to remain applications.
It is a formal request made to the UK Home Office by an applicant who is already in the UK, asking for exemption from paying the immigration application fee and, where applicable, the Immigration Health Surcharge. The request is based on affordability. The applicant needs to show that paying the required fees would prevent them from meeting their essential living needs. In practice, the Home Office can waive the application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, or waive the surcharge only, depending on what the affordability evidence shows.
Where an employee relies on a fee waiver, employers still need to manage expiry dates and right to work verification.
The standard fee waiver process is an in-country process and it is not a general concession across the immigration system. Separate Home Office policy can allow fee waivers in some out-of-country situations, but that sits outside the in-UK fee waiver process covered in this guide.
In practice, fee waivers are tied to human rights-based applications for leave to remain. These are cases where an individual is seeking to remain lawfully in the UK on family life or private life grounds, rather than applying under a work, study or visit route. The policy exists to prevent a situation where lawful status is lost solely because an applicant cannot afford to make a qualifying application.
These applications engage Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects private and family life. Fee waivers therefore sit alongside the family and private life provisions of the Immigration Rules rather than the points-based system.
Fee waivers are not available for all immigration categories. They do not apply to work routes such as the Skilled Worker visa, nor to visitor or student applications. Availability is limited to specific in-country routes where human rights considerations are engaged.
1. Which visa categories can use a fee waiver?
Fee waivers most often arise in these in-country contexts, where the underlying application is a family or private life, human rights-based leave to remain application:
- Further Leave to Remain applications under the family or private life route, including FLR(FP) applications on the 10-year route to settlement
- Private life applications, including cases involving children who have lived in the UK continuously for seven years or more
- Applications for leave outside the Immigration Rules where refusal would result in a breach of Article 8 rights
- Applications linked to family or partner routes where the applicant is in financial hardship, including situations where domestic abuse has left the applicant without access to funds, depending on the route being applied under
- Some discretionary or leave outside the Rules applications made on human rights grounds, which can include vulnerability scenarios where the applicant is already being managed through a Home Office protection pathway
Whether a fee waiver is available turns on the type of substantive application being made and the Home Office’s specified fee waiver cohorts, not the label an applicant uses to describe their circumstances.
2. Who can qualify for a fee waiver?
Applicants need to show that they are genuinely unable to afford the relevant application fee and, where applicable, the Immigration Health Surcharge. The Home Office applies an affordability test. Employment status alone is not decisive.
When assessing affordability, the Home Office looks at the applicant’s overall financial position, including:
- Current income and savings.
- Essential living costs such as housing, food, utilities and childcare.
- Financial responsibilities towards any dependants.
- Evidence of debt or financial instability.
- The availability of realistic third-party financial support. Where an applicant relies on family or friends, the Home Office looks for evidence of the supporter’s ability and willingness to fund the fees, and why that support is not realistically available.
- Whether it would be reasonable for the applicant to save towards the fee over time.
The test is whether paying the fees would compromise essential living needs. An applicant can be in paid employment and still qualify for a fee waiver where their income does not stretch far enough to cover both day-to-day living costs and immigration fees.
Applicants are expected to submit documentary evidence in support of the request. This usually includes bank statements, tenancy agreements, payslips and household bills. Evidence usually needs to cover a sustained period rather than a snapshot. Caseworkers look closely at account activity, regular spending patterns and any large or unusual credits or outgoings, and they expect those to be explained.
The Home Office decides the fee waiver request before the applicant is allowed to submit the substantive application for leave to remain. A successful request generates a fee waiver reference for the online form, and it only works for a short period, so the next step needs to be actioned quickly.
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
Fee waiver applications are deceptively high-risk junctures in the immigration process. They usually indicate that the individual may not be able to afford to remain compliant and may be at risk of breaching their leave conditions in the near future.
The bottom line is that fee waivers are difficult to secure. You simply can’t assume that a fee waiver request provides immigration status protection, because it doesn’t. Until a valid leave to remain application is submitted, the employee remains on a countdown clock tied to the expiry of their existing leave.
For employers of people in this situation, the risk only becomes clear once this distinction is understood. In practice, employers are often not aware of the financial or immigration pressure the individual is under, and the issue is treated as an employee problem. Employers who don’t grasp this distinction often realise too late that they have strayed into unlawful working territory without intending to.
Section B: Can Someone Be Working and Still Qualify?
A common misunderstanding around fee waiver applications is that an applicant needs to be unemployed or reliant on public funds to qualify. That is not how the Home Office assesses these requests. Employment does not, on its own, determine whether someone can afford to pay immigration fees.
In practice, many applicants who seek a fee waiver are working at the time they apply. Their difficulty lies not in whether they have a job, but in whether their income is sufficient to cover both essential living costs and the immigration fees required to maintain lawful status.
UK employers may therefore encounter staff who are working while applying for further leave to remain under family or private life routes and who are also pursuing a fee waiver. These situations are more common where pay is low, hours are insecure or household costs are high.
1. Can low income workers still qualify?
Being in employment, including full-time employment, does not prevent an individual from qualifying for a fee waiver. The Home Office applies an affordability test rather than a test based on employment status.
The assessment focuses on whether paying the application fee and, where applicable, the Immigration Health Surcharge would prevent the applicant from meeting their essential living needs. In practice, the Home Office accepts that affordability issues can arise where:
- Income is low or variable, including part-time or insecure work
- Housing costs absorb a significant proportion of monthly earnings
- Childcare or other caring responsibilities create unavoidable expense
- The applicant is supporting dependants on a single income
Applicants need to evidence their income and expenditure, but the fact that they are working is not, in itself, a reason for refusal.
2. How does the Home Office assess working applicants?
Home Office policy recognises that employment does not guarantee financial stability. Caseworkers are required to look at the applicant’s overall financial position, rather than assuming that paid work means fees are affordable.
For employers, this point matters because it explains why an employee may be both working lawfully and unable to meet immigration costs. Treating a fee waiver request as inconsistent with employment status can lead to incorrect assumptions, delayed disclosure and compressed timelines later in the process.
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
It’s not uncommon for employers to feel that if someone is employed and being paid by them, they should be able to afford their own immigration fees. But you really don’t know someone’s individual and personal situation. Insecure working hours, childcare or other caring costs and even housing pressure can mean many employees are just one missed deadline away from losing their lawful status.
The insight here is therefore uncomfortable: working status tells you nothing about immigration affordability, and disbelief on the employer side often triggers last-minute crises when employers try to fix the situation.
Section C: Impact on Employers
Employers face unlawful working exposure if they treat a fee waiver request as status protection.
When an employee applies for further leave to remain under a family or private life route, a fee waiver request often sits alongside that application. While the fee waiver itself is a matter between the individual and the Home Office, it has direct consequences for employers because it affects timing, continuity of leave and right to work compliance.
Employers are not responsible for submitting or funding fee waiver requests or immigration applications. However, they remain legally responsible for ensuring that every person they employ has valid permission to work in the UK at all times. Fee waiver cases sit in the gap between those two positions and are where compliance failures most often occur.
1. What should employers do when staff apply for a fee waiver?
Where an employee notifies an employer that they have submitted, or intend to submit, a fee waiver request, the employer’s role is limited but not passive. The focus should remain on immigration status and work permission, not on the merits of the application.
Employers need to understand that:
- A fee waiver request on its own does not extend immigration leave or permission to work
- Only a valid application for further leave to remain preserves lawful status. In most cases that means submitting in time, but fee waiver cases also run on a short post-decision window where permission can expire while the fee waiver request is pending
- Evidence of both the fee waiver decision and any subsequent leave application should be retained by the employee
Employers should avoid making assumptions about outcomes or timelines and should not treat a pending fee waiver as protection against unlawful working risk.
2. How should right to work checks be handled during a fee waiver case?
The correct approach to right to work checks depends on where the employee is in the immigration process and whether their existing leave is still valid.
- Before existing leave expires, a standard right to work check should be carried out using valid documentation or digital status.
- Once existing leave has expired and a valid application is pending, continued permission to work needs to be formally verified. In practice, that verification is obtained through the Employer Checking Service where the person cannot show their status through the standard check routes
- After a decision is issued, right to work records should be updated to reflect the employee’s new status.
Employers should not rely on verbal assurances or informal evidence that an application has been made. Once original leave expires, formal verification becomes essential to maintain a statutory excuse.
3. When does section 3C apply in a fee waiver case?
Section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 extends an individual’s existing immigration leave while a valid application for further leave to remain is under consideration. It applies only where the substantive application is submitted in time. It does not arise from the submission of a fee waiver request alone. Where a person’s permission ends while the fee waiver request is being processed, section 3C can still apply if the substantive application is submitted within the Home Office post-decision window and is valid.
Where section 3C applies, the individual remains subject to the same conditions as their previous grant of leave. This can include permission to work, but it does not create new work rights or vary existing conditions.
From an employer perspective, section 3C leave is a legal mechanism, not a document. Confirmation of continued permission to work needs to be obtained and retained in line with right to work compliance requirements.
| Scenario | Does section 3C apply? | Right to work position |
|---|---|---|
| Fee waiver request submitted only, no leave application yet | No | Right to work continues only until existing leave expires |
| Fee waiver granted but leave application not yet submitted | No | Right to work continues only until existing permission ends. If permission ends before the substantive application is submitted, work cannot continue unless and until the employer can verify ongoing permission through the correct route. |
| Leave application submitted in time after fee waiver grant | Yes | Existing work conditions continue while the application is pending |
| Fee waiver refused and no further application submitted | No | Right to work ends on expiry of existing leave |
| Fee waiver refused but paid application submitted before expiry | Yes | Work continues under existing conditions |
| Application submitted after leave has expired | No | No lawful right to work |
| Existing leave expires while fee waiver request is pending, fee waiver later granted, substantive application submitted within 10 working days | Yes | Once the valid substantive application is submitted, existing right to work conditions can continue during section 3C, but the employer still needs to evidence the statutory excuse through the appropriate check and retain records |
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
Don’t confuse a fee waiver request with an application that preserves working rights. Employers routinely allow staff to keep working on the assumption that a decision is pending, but from a Home Office perspective, that’s not how it works. Fee waivers have no bearing on the visa clock, and the countdown to leave expiring continues until a valid immigration application seeking to extend leave is submitted correctly.
In technical right to work terms, once someone’s original leave expires, only section 3C leave and an Employer Checking Service check protect the organisation against illegal working penalties. However credible, trustworthy or genuine the employee may be, employers who don’t follow this process risk civil penalties and, where applicable, sponsor licence scrutiny.
Section D: Managing HR Risk and Compliance
Fee waiver cases test how robust an employer’s immigration compliance systems really are. They often arise close to visa expiry dates and involve employees under financial pressure, which is when mistakes are most likely to be made. For HR teams, the risk is not the fee waiver itself, but how immigration status is monitored, recorded and acted on during the process.
Employers remain under a legal duty to prevent illegal working. That duty applies regardless of whether an employee appears cooperative, credible or long-standing.
1. Monitoring Visa Expiry and Application Timing
Accurate tracking of visa expiry dates is central to compliance. Employers should know when an employee’s permission to work is due to end and should not rely on informal reminders or last-minute disclosure.
Where an employee submits a valid application for further leave to remain before their existing leave expires, section 3C leave may extend their lawful status while the application is pending. Once original leave has expired, employers need to take active steps to confirm whether continued permission to work exists.
Failure to monitor expiry dates or to confirm status once leave ends exposes employers to unlawful working penalties, even where the underlying application is genuine.
2. Avoiding Discriminatory Assumptions
Fee waiver applications are assessed on affordability. They are not linked to nationality, ethnicity, job role or seniority. HR processes need to reflect that.
Employers should avoid treating fee waiver cases differently based on assumptions about income level, background or perceived credibility. Any follow-up action should be driven by objective immigration status information and applied consistently across the workforce.
Inconsistent handling increases the risk of discrimination claims and weakens the employer’s position if compliance decisions are later scrutinised.
3. Secure Handling of Immigration Records
Employers are required to keep evidence of right to work checks and any confirmation obtained during the application process. These records should be stored securely and access should be limited to those who need it for compliance purposes.
Immigration documentation should be kept separate from general personnel records where possible and retained only for as long as required. Employees should be clear about what information is held and why.
Poor record-keeping often comes to light only during audits or enforcement action, when it is too late to correct.
4. Supporting Staff Without Giving Immigration Advice
HR teams should not provide immigration advice unless authorised to do so. Explaining eligibility, advising on strategy or commenting on the likelihood of success can amount to regulated immigration advice.
Support should remain procedural. This includes signposting employees to regulated advisers, allowing reasonable time off for appointments or document gathering and maintaining clear, confidential communication. Keeping those boundaries protects both the employee and the organisation.
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
HR is right to focus on being supportive to employees dealing with expiring leave and a fee waiver request, but support alone is unlikely to be of real help and could actually expose the organisation so legal risk. Be wary of informal advice, ad hoc questioning or any inconsistent approach to handling fee waiver cases, because these can turn into discrimination claims or accusations of unlawful immigration advice, however well-meaning or well-intentioned.
To manage risk, you need the correct systems, scripts and boundaries to professionalise how fee waiver cases are handled and to minimise legal risk from the organisation.
Section E: Supporting Staff Through the Process
Fee waiver applications often arise at points of financial and personal strain for employees. From an employer perspective, the challenge is to offer practical workplace support without becoming involved in the immigration decision-making process or exposing the organisation to regulatory risk.
Handled well, support reduces disruption and last-minute risk. Handled poorly, it creates compliance and liability issues that sit squarely with the employer rather than the Home Office.
1. Creating a Supportive but Controlled Workplace Environment
Employees are more likely to raise immigration issues early where there is a clear, confidential process for doing so. Employers should make it clear how and when staff are expected to notify HR about upcoming visa expiry or immigration applications.
Support should focus on process, not outcomes. Employers should avoid commenting on whether an employee is likely to qualify for a fee waiver or succeed in their application. That assessment sits outside the employer’s role.
2. Signposting to Regulated Advice
Where employees need help with a fee waiver or leave to remain application, employers should direct them to regulated immigration advisers or solicitors. Attempting to explain eligibility or recommend a particular approach risks crossing into regulated immigration advice.
Having a standard signposting approach avoids inconsistent handling and reduces the likelihood of well-intentioned but problematic advice being given by HR or managers.
3. Allowing Time Off for Appointments and Evidence Gathering
Fee waiver and leave to remain applications often require attendance at biometric appointments and the collection of financial evidence within limited timeframes. Where operationally possible, employers may allow reasonable time off to accommodate this.
Flexibility at this stage can reduce delay and error. It is a management decision rather than a legal obligation, but refusing flexibility often pushes problems closer to expiry dates, where options narrow.
4. Communicating Internal Processes Clearly
Employees should understand what information HR needs, how it will be used and who within the organisation is responsible for immigration compliance. Clear internal processes reduce confusion and prevent information being shared informally or inconsistently.
Where immigration issues are handled without clarity, employers often discover problems only when leave has already expired.
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
On a day-to-day basis, the employee would benefit from employer support. Flexibility, time off and signposting may seem small, but they can directly affect whether applications are submitted on time. Employers who refuse flexibility can add to the pressure of the situation, leaving employees to rush applications and increasing refusal risk.
That said, doing the opposite can be just as risky. Employers who blur the line into giving advice themselves expose the organisation to regulatory breaches.
Employers need to know where support ends and liability begins.
Section F: What Happens After the Waiver Decision
A fee waiver decision changes the fee position, not immigration permission.
The point at which a fee waiver decision is issued is where employers are most exposed. The decision does not grant immigration permission and it does not extend leave. What matters is what the employee does next and how quickly that happens.
Employers often assume that a positive fee waiver decision resolves the immediate risk. In reality, it opens a narrow and unforgiving window in which lawful status must be preserved through a valid leave to remain application.
1. What does a fee waiver decision actually change?
A fee waiver decision determines whether the applicant is required to pay some or all of the immigration application fees. It does not determine the outcome of the immigration application and it does not confer immigration leave.
From an employer perspective, the decision changes nothing unless and until a valid application for further leave to remain is submitted. Until that happens, the employee remains dependent on their existing leave and its expiry date.
2. If the Fee Waiver Is Granted
Where a fee waiver is granted, the employee is required to submit the substantive application for leave to remain within ten working days of the date of decision. That deadline is strict. If the window is missed, the fee waiver reference may stop working and the applicant may need to start again with a new request. The process also runs on short operational deadlines after submission, including booking the biometric appointment in time, so last-minute filing creates avoidable failure points.
If the application is submitted in time and is valid, section 3C leave can extend the employee’s existing permission once their current leave expires. If the deadline is missed, lawful status can fall away immediately.
Employers should not assume that a granted fee waiver means an application has been made. Confirmation is required.
3. If the Fee Waiver Is Refused
A refusal of a fee waiver does not end existing leave. The employee may still choose to submit a paid application, submit a further fee waiver request or seek legal advice.
What matters for employers is whether a valid leave to remain application is submitted before existing leave expires. If no valid application is made in time, section 3C leave does not apply and the right to work ends when existing leave expires.
Submitting a further fee waiver request on its own does not preserve work rights.
4. Right to Work Risk During This Stage
This stage carries the highest risk of inadvertent unlawful working. Employees may delay disclosure if a fee waiver is refused or if deadlines are missed. Employers who wait for updates rather than verifying status place themselves at risk.
Once existing leave has expired, employers need confirmation that lawful status continues. Without that confirmation, work must not continue.
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
The period after a fee waiver decision is where employers are most exposed. The 10-working-day deadline is strictly enforced, and many employees misunderstand it or miss it entirely. Employers often assume someone will tell them if something goes wrong, but it’s more likely that employees will delay disclosing this to their employer, purely out of fear and worry.
If the deadline is missed, lawful status can be lost straightaway and employers may not realise until later, when they have already breached their obligations.
Section G: Strategic Considerations for Employers
Fee waiver cases are rarely isolated incidents. They tend to surface where employees are on long-term family or private life routes, face sustained affordability pressure and have limited margin for error when it comes to immigration deadlines. For employers, these cases expose how resilient their immigration governance really is.
Handled reactively, fee waiver situations create last-minute decision-making, operational disruption and compliance risk. Handled systematically, they become predictable and manageable.
1. Immigration Monitoring as a Core HR Control
Employers who rely on ad-hoc tracking or informal reminders are more likely to encounter problems when fee waiver cases arise. Immigration status, expiry dates and application timing need to be embedded into core HR systems rather than treated as exceptions.
Where monitoring is robust, employers can identify risk months in advance. Where it is weak, issues often surface only when leave is about to expire or has already ended.
2. Early Disclosure as a Risk Management Tool
Employees often delay raising immigration affordability issues out of fear, embarrassment or concern about job security. By the time the issue is disclosed, options may already be limited.
Employers reduce risk by making it clear that early disclosure is expected and will be handled confidentially and neutrally. This is not about assessing merit or offering solutions, but about preserving lawful status and work continuity where possible.
Late disclosure is one of the most common causes of avoidable unlawful working risk.
3. Workforce Planning Beyond the Immediate Case
Repeated fee waiver cases can point to wider workforce issues, including roles that sit close to minimum salary thresholds, long-term reliance on limited leave routes or employees who may need alternative immigration options in future.
Employers should treat these cases as signals rather than anomalies. Forward planning may include reviewing role structures, understanding future sponsorship eligibility or assessing retention risk where immigration status remains fragile. Ignoring these signals leaves employers exposed to repeated disruption and loss of experienced staff.
DavidsonMorris Strategic Insight
Fee waiver requests tend to signify wider immigration issues within an organisation. It could mean affordability pressures, immigration fragility and retention risk within the workforce, suggesting better sponsorship planning is needed, alongside scheduled salary reviews and succession risk management. The aim is a more predictable immigration programme that promotes control over firefighting.
Section H: Summary
For applicants, fee waivers provide an important, albeit limited, safeguard where human rights are engaged. For employers, they introduce real compliance risk if misunderstood or handled informally.
The key issue is not the fee waiver itself, but what follows. A fee waiver request does not extend leave. Only a valid, in-time leave to remain application preserves lawful status and, where applicable, the right to work. Employers who focus on verification, deadlines and record-keeping rather than assumptions are far better placed to avoid unlawful working risk.
Handled properly, fee waiver cases are manageable. Handled late or casually, they are one of the most common ways employers end up exposed without realising it.
Section I: Need Assistance?
Fee waiver cases often involve tight deadlines and for employers, high risk around right to work compliance. If you are dealing with an employee or worker who may need to rely on a fee waiver application, early advice can prevent costly mistakes.
For advice on a fee waiver application, or you are an employer with questions about an employee who is applying for a fee waiver, book a fixed-fee telephone consultation and put your questions direct to one of our legal advisers.
Section J: Fee Waiver Application FAQs
What is a fee waiver application?
A fee waiver application is a request made from within the UK asking the Home Office to waive the immigration application fee and, where applicable, the Immigration Health Surcharge on affordability grounds. It is most commonly used in family or private life leave to remain applications.
Can someone be working and still qualify for a fee waiver?
Yes. Eligibility is based on affordability, not employment status. Applicants can be in paid work and still qualify if paying the fees would prevent them from meeting essential living needs.
Does a fee waiver application extend immigration leave?
Where a person’s permission ends during the fee waiver process, status protection depends on submitting a valid substantive application in the Home Office post-decision window, not on the fee waiver request itself.
What happens if a fee waiver is granted?
If granted, the applicant must submit their substantive leave to remain application within ten working days of the decision notice. Missing that deadline can result in loss of lawful status.
What happens if a fee waiver is refused?
A refusal does not end existing leave. The applicant may still submit a paid application, submit a further fee waiver request or seek legal advice. If no valid application is submitted before leave expires, lawful status ends.
Can an employer keep someone working while a fee waiver is pending?
Only where lawful status continues. Once existing leave expires, employers need formal confirmation that permission to work remains in place. A pending fee waiver request alone is not sufficient. Where the employee cannot show ongoing permission through the standard check routes once their permission end date passes, employers usually rely on the Employer Checking Service and retain the Positive Verification Notice for their statutory excuse.
Should employers keep copies of fee waiver documents?
Employers should retain evidence relevant to right to work compliance, such as confirmation of status or formal verification. Fee waiver paperwork itself is not usually required for employer records.
Section K: Glossary of Key Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Fee Waiver Application | A request to the Home Office to waive immigration application fees on affordability grounds for qualifying in-country applications. |
| FLR(FP) | Further Leave to Remain based on family or private life under human rights provisions. |
| Immigration Health Surcharge | A charge payable with most UK immigration applications to access NHS services. |
| Section 3C Leave | A statutory extension of existing immigration leave while a valid in-time application is pending. |
| Right to Work Check | A legal check employers carry out to confirm an individual’s permission to work in the UK. |
| Employer Checking Service | A Home Office service used to verify work permission where standard documents are unavailable. |
| Positive Verification Notice | Formal confirmation of permission to work issued following an employer check. |
| OISC | The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, which regulates immigration advisers. |
Section L: Additional Resources and Official Links
| Resource | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Home Office fee waiver guidance | Official Home Office guidance on when and how to request a fee waiver based on affordability. | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fee-waiver-request |
| Caseworker guidance | Policy guidance used by caseworkers on eligibility, evidence standards and the post-decision deadline. | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66e1631dabfcfa21e879ac0d/Fee+waiver+Human+Rights-Based+and+other+specified+applications.pdf |
| Right to work checks employer guide | Home Office guidance for employers on carrying out lawful right to work checks. | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide |
| Employer Checking Service | Service used by employers to confirm permission to work where documents are unavailable. | https://www.gov.uk/employee-immigration-employment-status |
| Find an immigration adviser | Tool to check whether an immigration adviser is properly regulated. | https://www.gov.uk/find-an-immigration-adviser |
| Immigration Rules Appendix FM | Legal framework governing family and private life applications where fee waivers may apply. | https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-fm |
