How much does the whole 5-year spouse/family visa route to settlement actually cost? On the 8 April 2026 fee schedule, the mandatory total is £12,439.50 per person — application fees plus the immigration health surcharge plus the Life in the UK test — which is roughly ฿541,000. Below is the full stage-by-stage breakdown, every figure sourced from GOV.UK.
Compiled & reviewed by Sunaree Ko, Founder · Source: GOV.UK Home Office fees, 8 April 2026
The full 5-year spouse/family visa route to indefinite leave to remain (ILR) costs £12,439.50 per person in mandatory Home Office charges on the 8 April 2026 fee schedule. That is £6,697 in application fees (entry clearance £2,064 + FLR(M) extension £1,407 + ILR £3,226), plus £5,692.50 of immigration health surcharge (IHS), plus the £50 Life in the UK test. Add the approved English (SELT) tests you need along the way and the realistic all-in is closer to £12,760 per person (about ฿555,000). For a family — a partner plus one dependent child — the mandatory total is roughly £24,879 (about ฿1.08 million).
This is the headline table: every mandatory Home Office charge on the 5-year partner route to ILR, per person, on the 8 April 2026 fee schedule. The IHS is charged in advance for each grant and rounded up in 6-month blocks; settlement (ILR) is IHS-exempt.
| Stage | Application fee | IHS | Other | ฿ (×43.5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry clearance (partner) — 33-month grant | £2,064 | £3,105 | A1 SELT ~£160 | ฿224,852 |
| FLR(M) extension — 30-month grant | £1,407 | £2,587.50 | — | ฿173,761 |
| ILR / settlement (SET(M)) | £3,226 | £0 (exempt) | Life in UK £50 + B1 SELT ~£160 | ฿142,506 |
| Grand total per person (fees + IHS + Life in UK) | £6,697 | £5,692.50 | £50 | ฿541,118 |
Mandatory total per person = £6,697 (fees) + £5,692.50 (IHS) + £50 (Life in the UK test) = £12,439.50 ≈ ฿541,118. SELT English tests (about £160 at each of the entry-clearance and ILR stages) are mandatory too but vary by provider, so they are shown as indicative "other" rather than in the headline; including ~£320 of SELT gives an all-in of about £12,759.50 (≈฿555,038). Baht conversions are at an indicative ฿43.5/£1 and move daily. Application fees from the GOV.UK Home Office immigration and nationality fees, 8 April 2026; IHS from the GOV.UK health-surcharge schedule (£1,035/yr). Always confirm current figures at GOV.UK.
Per-stage totals (fee + IHS + tests, per person): entry clearance £5,169 (+ ~£160 SELT), FLR(M) £3,994.50, ILR £3,276 (£3,226 fee + £50 Life in the UK test, + ~£160 SELT). Bars are scaled to the largest stage.
The first stage is the entry-clearance partner visa applied for from Thailand. The application fee from 8 April 2026 is £2,064. A successful application grants leave for 33 months, and the IHS is paid in advance for that whole period. Because the surcharge is charged in 6-month blocks and rounded up, 33 months (2 years + 9 months) is charged as 3 full years — £1,035 × 3 = £3,105. You will also sit an A1-level approved English (SELT) test, roughly £160. So this first stage alone is about £5,169 in fees and IHS (around ฿224,852), before translations, the TB test and VFS costs. See our full UK spouse visa guide.
Before the first visa expires you apply in the UK to extend it — form FLR(M). The fee from 8 April 2026 is £1,407, and the extension grants a further 30 months. Thirty months is exactly 2.5 years, so the IHS is £1,035 × 2.5 = £2,587.50 — no rounding up this time. Together that is £3,994.50 for the extension stage. A higher A2-level English test is required for the extension; many applicants already meet it. After this stage you will have completed five years of qualifying residence.
After five years on the route you apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) on form SET(M). The fee from 8 April 2026 is £3,226 — the single largest fee of the route. The good news is that ILR is exempt from the IHS, so there is no surcharge at this stage. Before applying you must pass the £50 Life in the UK test and meet the B1 English requirement (an approved SELT test, roughly £160). That makes the settlement stage about £3,276 in mandatory fees, or about £3,436 with the SELT test.
The IHS is often the surprise. It is £1,035 per year for an adult, paid in advance for the full length of each grant, and it is the second-biggest line on the route after the ILR fee. Crucially, it is charged in 6-month blocks and rounded up: any part-year over six months is charged as a whole year, while exactly six months or less is charged as a half-year. That is why the 33-month entry-clearance grant costs three full years (£3,105) but the 30-month extension costs two-and-a-half (£2,587.50).
Total IHS across the route is £5,692.50 per person. Children under 18 are charged the lower £776-a-year rate, so a child's share of the route is smaller than an adult's. For the same fees converted into baht with every other cost, see UK visa cost from Thailand in baht.
Every applicant — the partner and each dependent child — pays the fees and IHS in their own right, so the total scales with the number of people on the route. A couple bringing one partner to settlement is the £12,439.50 headline. A partner plus one child is roughly £24,879 in mandatory fees and IHS; a partner plus two children is about £37,300. Because children pay the lower £776/yr IHS, their share is a little less than a straight doubling — these are upper-bound estimates.
For context, the independent House of Commons Library has estimated the full immigration cost of the family route to citizenship (one stage beyond ILR) at around £13,000+ per person — broadly in line with the £12,439.50 settlement figure here plus the later citizenship fee.
The £12,439.50 figure is mandatory Home Office fees and IHS only. Applying from Thailand, you should also budget for several other items that are real but vary by case:
For everything converted into baht — fees, IHS, VFS and translation — see UK visa cost from Thailand (in baht), and for the rules behind the route, the £29,000 income requirement explained.
The figures above are the 5-year route, available where the financial and relationship requirements are met. The 10-year route reaches settlement in four paid 30-month stages instead of two before ILR — so it carries roughly double the application fees and far more IHS, easily £20,000+ per person. Where you qualify for it, the 5-year route is materially cheaper. See the spouse visa guide and our fees page.
Every pound figure on this page is taken from official GOV.UK sources on the 8 April 2026 fee schedule and reconciled to the penny:
Primary sources — GOV.UK and Parliament, free to use:
Last updated: June 2026, reflecting the 8 April 2026 fee schedule. Next update: on the next Home Office fee change. These are headline mandatory costs; always confirm the current fees and IHS at GOV.UK before relying on them.
UK Visa From Thailand (2026) "True Cost of a UK Spouse Visa to Settlement (5-Year Route)". https://ukvisafromthailand.com/en/uk-spouse-visa-cost-to-settlement — fees: GOV.UK Home Office immigration and nationality fees, 8 April 2026, plus the published IHS schedule.
Last reviewed: June 2026. This page presents aggregate published GOV.UK fee data for information only; it is not immigration advice and not a quote for any individual case. All figures reflect the 8 April 2026 immigration and nationality fees and the published IHS schedule (£1,035/yr). Baht conversions at an indicative ฿43.5/£1 are illustrative and move daily. Always confirm the latest fees at GOV.UK before relying on them.
Tell us your situation and we'll reply with a clear document plan and price — no obligation. We prepare, translate and book; we don't assess your chances.
Your details are kept confidential (PDPA / UK-GDPR). General information, not regulated immigration advice.
Sunaree founded UK Visa From Thailand and compiles and reviews the guides and data on this site. We are a document-preparation and certified-translation service — not a law firm and not IAA-registered — and every figure is sourced from GOV.UK. Read Sunaree's full bio →