High Potential Individual Visa (HPI)

What is the High Potential Individual Visa?

Learn here about the UK’s newest visa route. Called the High Potential Individual Visa, this option was announced in early 2022. The Government provided guidance on how to apply for the route from 30 May 2022.

It is a short-term work visa for individuals who graduated from top universities in the world. These are universities from outside the UK. Applicants will have graduated within the last few years, starting from 2016. If you graduated from any of the listed universities after 2016, you may be eligible to apply for this visa.

Each graduating year has a different list of universities. This means your graduating year must correspond with the list of universities. Therefore, only if your university is on the list for your graduation year, will you be eligible to apply.

This new route is part of the UK’s promise to invite a highly skilled workforce into the country. That means, of course, we are a country reeling from the labour shortages over the last few years. Applicants need not have a job offer to apply for the visa. In fact, you can apply for the visa and then reside in the UK during this time to look for a job. Once expired, applicants will be able to apply for a skilled worker visa and routes to settlement. This applies if  you spend 5 years on the skilled worker visa.

Some universities on the list are Caltech, Columbia, Cornell, ETH Zurich, Kyoto University, McGill University, University of Tokyo, and University of Melbourne.

What are the conditions?

However, applicants must note that there are conditions based on finances and English language requirements.  As a result, every applicant must satisfy these before they will be granted the visa.

The visa costs £715 for the application itself and £624 for immigration health surcharge depending on how many years you are applying for. The maximum number of years an applicant can apply for are two years. Thus, for a one-year HPI visa, the cost will be £1339 and for two years it will be £1963.

Where do I get more information?

For more information on the English language requirements, financial requirements and information on how to apply, please contact us.