Why can you not just estimate the missing fees?

Because an estimate presented next to sourced figures reads as though it were one. On a number somebody is budgeting a family move around, a plausible guess is more dangerous than an admitted gap.

Are agent fees included?

No. Everything priced here is a government charge. Whether to engage an adviser is your decision and their fee is theirs to quote.

Do I get the maintenance funds back?

They are not paid to anyone — they are savings you must evidence. But they must genuinely be available, and schemes requiring them held for a set number of consecutive days mean you cannot borrow them for a week.

What a visa actually costs

Last checked August 17, 2026

The application fee is rarely the largest line. Health surcharges, maintenance funds, recognition, translation and the trip to lodge routinely add up to several times it — and only the first appears in most guides.

The fee is the small part

Ask what a visa costs and you will be told the application fee. It is the number that is easiest to find, and for most routes to settlement it is a minority of what you will actually spend.

The UK is the clearest illustration because everything is published. The Immigration Health Surcharge is charged per person per year of the visa, in advance.

UK Immigration Health Surcharge, per adult per year

£1,035

Source · August 15, 2026

A family of four on a five-year visa pays that twenty times over before anyone has looked at the visa fee itself. It is routinely the largest single line in a UK migration budget and the one people find last.

Cost estimateUK total migration cost builderAdds up what the whole journey costs — visa, health surcharge, extension, settlement and citizenship — for you and everybody coming with you.Open the calculator

The lines nobody quotes

Maintenance funds. Not a fee — money you must hold, often for a stated number of consecutive days, and evidence. It is not spent, but it must exist, and for many applicants that is the harder constraint.
Credential recognition. A separate process with its own fee and its own months, and a prerequisite for several of the routes that need no employer.
Translation and legalisation. Per document, and the document count grows with your family size and the length of your history.
Language testing. Per attempt, and the certificate expires.
Travel to lodge. Where the destination keeps no mission in your country, this is a flight and a hotel, and it belongs in the budget from the start.

What we will and will not tell you

Where we have sourced a fee from a route's own official page, the fee calculator will price it and show you the sentence it came from. Where we have not, it says so and produces no total — an estimate assembled from amounts nobody has read off an official page looks exactly like an answer and is not one.

Cost estimateVisa fee calculatorPrices any route we have published, using the fees quoted on the official page, converted to your currency at a pinned exchange rate.Open the calculator

Currency conversion has the same rule. We convert at a pinned daily snapshot of European Central Bank reference rates plus the CFA franc peg. For currencies the ECB does not publish — the naira, the cedi and the shilling among them — we leave the line unconverted and name it, rather than inventing a rate.

Common questions

Why can you not just estimate the missing fees?: Because an estimate presented next to sourced figures reads as though it were one. On a number somebody is budgeting a family move around, a plausible guess is more dangerous than an admitted gap.
Are agent fees included?: No. Everything priced here is a government charge. Whether to engage an adviser is your decision and their fee is theirs to quote.
Do I get the maintenance funds back?: They are not paid to anyone — they are savings you must evidence. But they must genuinely be available, and schemes requiring them held for a set number of consecutive days mean you cannot borrow them for a week.