Studying in London: the Student visa and what a year really costs

The line that changes everything: you are now an overseas student

Before 2021, a French student in London paid what a British student paid. The fee was capped, student finance was reachable, and the decision to cross the Channel was mostly about the course. That world is gone, and the replacement is expensive.

EU nationals lost home fee status for courses starting after August 2021. You are charged the overseas rate, which universities set freely. In London that commonly means £27,000 to £38,000 a year for an undergraduate degree or a taught master’s, with clinical subjects far higher — medicine and dentistry run past £60,000 a year at some London institutions. The capped home fee, by comparison, sits near £9,790 for 2026 entry. On a three-year bachelor’s, that gap is not a detail: it is the price of a flat.

The exceptions are real but narrow. You may still be assessed at the home rate if you hold settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme with the required period of residence, if you are an Irish citizen, or through certain family-based categories. Pre-settled status alone usually is not enough. Fee status is assessed case by case by each university, so the only safe move is to ask the admissions office to confirm your status in writing before you accept the offer.

The Student visa, step by step

The chain is rigid and every link has its own delay.

• The offer, then the CAS. Your university, which must be a licensed student sponsor, issues a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies: not a paper document but a reference in the Home Office system. It must be issued no more than 6 months before you apply, and it carries your course, your fees and what you have already paid.
• English. You need CEFR B2 for degree level, in all four skills. A university sponsoring a degree-level course may assess your English itself, which is why a French baccalauréat or a Cambridge certificate is often accepted instead of a formal secure test. Below degree level, B1 and a secure test are the rule. France is not on the exemption list.
• The application. You may apply up to 6 months before your course starts from outside the UK. The standard decision time is 3 weeks. A paid faster service exists, around £500 for priority and £1,000 for super priority, but availability depends on where you apply — do not build your plan on it.
• What you get. Since 1 July 2026 the Home Office no longer puts a sticker in passports for new applicants: you receive an eVisa. You create a UKVI account, and you prove your status with a share code valid 90 days, which a landlord or employer will ask for.

Two formalities that worry French applicants do not apply to you. ATAS, the security clearance for sensitive subjects, exempts EU nationals including France. The tuberculosis test is required only for a short list of countries, none of them in western Europe. And police registration was abolished in August 2022, whatever an old blog or an outdated university page tells you.

Your permission runs beyond the course itself: for a course of 12 months or more, you get 1 month before it starts and 4 months after it ends. Those four months are what make the post-study application possible without a gap.

The 28-day rule, where most refusals are born

This is the part to read twice, because it is mechanical and unforgiving. You must show you hold, on top of your unpaid tuition:

• London: £1,529 per month of course, capped at 9 months — £13,761.
• Outside London: £1,171 per month, capped at 9 months, so £10,539.

And the money must behave: it has to sit in an eligible account for 28 consecutive days without dropping below the required level on any single day, and the closing balance must be dated no more than 31 days before you apply. Miss either condition and the application fails on the arithmetic, not on your merit.

What counts: bank statements, a certificate of deposit, a letter from a regulated financial institution, a student loan letter dated within six months, or an official sponsor’s letter. What does not: an overdraft facility, shares, cryptocurrency, a pension pot. Two deductions are allowed and often forgotten — tuition already paid reduces what you must show, and a deposit paid to the university for its own accommodation can be offset up to one month’s maintenance.

Nationals of some forty countries are spared from filing this evidence upfront. France is not among them, so a French applicant supplies the full file every time.

What the visa itself costs

Separately from tuition and living costs, the Home Office charges you twice: a fee, and a health surcharge paid in advance for the whole length of your permission.

• Student visa fee: £558 from outside the UK, and the same to extend or switch from inside.
• Immigration Health Surcharge: £776 per year at the student rate, which buys you NHS access on the same terms as a resident.

The surcharge is charged on your permission, not your course. Take the common case of a 12-month master’s in London: permission runs 12 months plus 1 before plus 4 after, so 17 months, which falls in the band “over a year and up to 18 months” — a full year plus a half year, £1,164. With the fee, that is £1,722 payable before you land, on top of everything else. Budget it as cash, not as an afterthought.

The real budget, and why the official figure misleads

Here is the honest comparison nobody puts in a brochure. The Home Office asks you to prove £1,529 a month. The average purpose-built student room in London already costs around £295 a week, roughly £13,600 a year, and 14% of those rooms cost more than £20,000 a year. In other words, the sum the visa asks you to prove is approximately the rent alone, before you have eaten anything.

A realistic London student month lands between £1,400 and £2,000 once rent, food, transport and some social life are counted, with rent taking sixty to seventy per cent of it. University halls can undercut the private market, and a house share further out undercuts both, at the cost of a longer commute — which is exactly the trade our neighbourhood guide is built to arbitrate.

Three levers genuinely move the number:

• Council tax. A home where everyone is a full-time student is exempt. Mix with one non-student and the exemption collapses to a 25% discount, charged to the household. It is never automatic: you claim it with a certificate of enrolment.
• Transport. The 18+ Student Oyster photocard takes 30% off travelcards — meaningful on a zone 1–2 monthly, and worth arranging in the first week.
• The contract length. Student housing is often sold as a 51-week let when your course runs 40. Paying eleven weeks of rent on an empty room is one of the most common avoidable costs of a first year.

On the French side, support does not disappear: the bourse sur critères sociaux can be maintained while you study abroad, and the aide à la mobilité internationale is open to those who hold it. Ask your French institution’s international office early, because these are decided on a calendar that has nothing to do with the British one.

Working while you study, and the ban that catches French students

At degree level or above with a compliant sponsor, you may work 20 hours a week during term time and full time outside it, including after your course ends while your permission runs. Below degree level it is 10 hours.

Then come the prohibitions, and one of them matters enormously here: you cannot be self-employed. No freelance invoicing, no registered business, no auto-entrepreneur equivalent. For a French student for whom auto-entrepreneur is the natural way to earn on the side, this is the single most frequently broken condition, and breaking it puts your permission at risk. You also cannot work as a professional sportsperson or entertainer, nor fill a permanent full-time vacancy. Being a students’ union sabbatical officer is expressly allowed, full time, for up to two years.

Twenty hours a week at prevailing London rates realistically covers food, transport and social life. It does not cover London rent. Plan the funding without the job, and let the job improve the year rather than rescue it.

After the degree: the cliff of 1 January 2027

The Graduate route lets you stay to work, with no sponsor and no job offer required, and it allows self-employment — the freedom you did not have as a student. Its length is about to change, and the rule is a date, not a course:

• apply on or before 31 December 2026 → 2 years;
• apply on or after 1 January 2027 → 18 months;
• doctoral graduates keep 3 years either way.

It costs £937, plus the health surcharge at the full £1,035 a year — the student discount does not carry over. You must be in the UK when you apply, and your university must already have reported your completion, which it does on its own timetable. It can be claimed once, cannot be extended, and, importantly, does not itself lead to settlement: it is a runway to find a sponsored role, not a path to permanent residence.

Erasmus+ returns, and the rules are already written

Here is the piece almost no one connects. After a political agreement reached on 17 December 2025, the United Kingdom rejoins Erasmus+ from 1 January 2027, having been outside it since 2021. The precise terms are still being settled between the Commission and member states.

What makes this credible rather than an announcement is that the British immigration plumbing has already been laid. A statement of changes of 3 September 2026, in force 8 October 2026, opened the Student route to Erasmus+ courses below the usual degree-level floor, and exempted Erasmus+ participants from the limits that cap how much of a course may be a work placement. The rules were amended before the programme returned, which tells you the exchange track is being prepared in earnest.

Practically: if you are aiming at a short exchange rather than a full degree, the calculus may change from 2027, and it is worth asking your French institution what it expects to sign. If you are aiming at a full degree in London, nothing here changes your fees — Erasmus+ funds mobility, it does not buy you home fee status.

The traps

• Budgeting on the home fee. The public fee page is not your fee. Get your status confirmed in writing before accepting.
• Letting the balance dip. One day below the threshold inside the 28 days voids the evidence. Move the money in, then leave it alone.
• A stale closing balance. The statement must be dated within 31 days of the application. Statements go out of date while you gather other documents.
• Straddling 30 November 2026. The required sum rises that day. Apply before it if your file is ready.
• Freelancing on the side. Self-employment is banned outright on a Student visa, whatever your French habits.
• Assuming a taught master’s can bring a partner. Only doctoral, research or government-sponsored routes can.
• Waiting to claim the Graduate route. Six months of permission can turn on a single day and a university’s reporting speed.
• Signing a 51-week contract for a 40-week course. Ask for the term-time option before you sign.
• Forgetting the council tax exemption. It is a claim, not a right that applies itself.

Your plan, in outline

Work backwards from the start of term. Get your fee status confirmed, then the offer, then the CAS. Count 28 days of untouched savings back from the day you intend to apply, and place that window before 30 November 2026 if you can. Allow three weeks of decision time before your flight, and treat a faster service as luck rather than a plan. Then the arrival week: bank account, GP registration, council tax exemption, Student Oyster. And if the Graduate route is in your future, put its date in the calendar the day you enrol. That first fortnight on the ground is where Veia takes over: it puts the room, the bank, the doctor and the council tax exemption on your arrival date, in the order that actually works, with a reminder before each one.