UK Immigration Health Surcharge From Nigeria (IHS)

The immigration health surcharge from Nigeria costs £1,035 a year — about ₦2,066,000/year at ₦1,996/£ (24 July 2026) — and you pay it before the UK visa fee, in its own separate charge. Miss that order and the application stalls; get it right and hit a decline anyway, and the fix is a 24-hour retry, not a new card. This page prices the IHS for a 3-year and 5-year Skilled Worker grant and a family with dependants.

What the IHS costs from Nigeria in 2026

In short: the IHS is £1,035 a year for most applicants, £776 a year for students and their dependants — one upfront lump sum for your whole visa length, separate from any priority fee or VFS biometric fee. A 3-year Skilled Worker grant costs £3,105 (about ₦6,197,000) in IHS alone. Source: gov.uk, “Pay for UK healthcare as part of your immigration application.”

Source: gov.uk IHS calculator (£1,035/£776 per year); visa-fees.homeoffice.gov.uk. Checked 24 July 2026. ₦ at this site’s ₦1,540/$ × $1.296/£ ≈ ₦1,996/£ — not an official naira price; rates move weekly.

Put the two charges together for the commonest case — one applicant, a 3-year Skilled Worker CoS — and the IHS (£3,105) plus the visa fee (£819, the 8 April 2026 rate) comes to £3,924, about ₦7,832,000. The surcharge is four-fifths of that.

The £776 discount applies only when the main applicant is on a student or Youth Mobility route — their dependants inherit it too. A Skilled Worker’s spouse or child does not get it; they pay the full £1,035/year rate. That distinction alone can move a family’s bill by ₦millions — see the full UK visa fee table for IHS priced as its own line, never folded into “the fee.”

Why you pay the IHS before the visa fee

In short: gov.uk’s own flow makes you pay the IHS first — it hands you a reference number the visa fee step needs. If the fee declines right after, it’s usually your card’s international limit, not a failed application. Source: Nairaland UK visa payment threads; r/ukvisa, 2025-2026.

Nigerian applicants describe the same sequence thread after thread: “you have to pay for your IHS ($905.64) first and you get a reference number” before the fee accepts payment. Take the order from that quote, not the dollar figure — the poster never stated their visa length, and $905.64 does not reconcile to the £1,035-a-year rate at any 2025-2026 exchange rate tested for this page. Price your own IHS off the per-year table above. Pay out of order and the system blocks you.

1. Reach the payment section of your gov.uk application.
2. Pay the IHS first and save the reference number.
3. Pay the separate visa application fee next.
4. If the fee declines, it’s usually your card’s international limit — retry after 24 hours.
5. Keep both the IHS reference and the fee receipt.

Step 4 is predictable: the fee bounces right after a successful IHS payment, because the card’s international limit is already partly used. r/ukvisa user No_Window8199’s fix: “retry after 24 hours of IHS transaction and it will go through.” Don’t assume the card is dead — wait a day. Choosing a card first: see the payment decision tree.

The per-dependant cost — the family total nobody prices

In short: each dependant pays their own full IHS, at the same rate and term as the main applicant — a couple with two children on a 5-year Skilled Worker visa pays roughly ₦41,317,000 in IHS alone, before any visa fees. Source: gov.uk IHS calculator; this site’s ₦1,996/£ conversion.

There is no family rate or household cap, and the IHS fee in Naira scales with every extra name on the application. Add a spouse and child to a 3-year Skilled Worker CoS, and the bill is £3,105 three times over: ₦18,593,000 for a family of three. Stretch that to a 5-year grant for a family of four, and the total climbs to roughly ₦41,317,000 in IHS alone — a figure that rarely appears next to the headline “visa fee.”

Is the IHS refundable?

In short: yes — the IHS is refunded automatically if you’re refused, withdraw your application, or are granted a shorter period than you paid for. No separate claim is needed. Source: gov.uk, “Pay for UK healthcare as part of your immigration application.”

This cuts the opposite way from the visa fee, which the Home Office keeps regardless of outcome (full comparison: UK visa fees from Nigeria). It lands on the card you paid with — no refund form needed. Sources here don’t state a fixed number of days; allow several weeks.

Paying the IHS from Nigeria

In short: the IHS is charged in US dollars inside your gov.uk application, before the visa fee — a plain naira card usually declines. Sort a working dollar card before you reach the payment screen. Source: gov.uk, “Pay for UK healthcare as part of your immigration application.”

A standard visitor visa cost carries no IHS, and the ETA cost visa-exempt travellers pay doesn’t apply here either — this charge is specific to visas over 6 months. Sort your dollar card before the IHS screen. If it declines, the fallback ladder — dollar card, then domiciliary-funded prepaid card, then someone abroad pays in naira — is the same one used across every fee page here.

Red flag: the IHS is paid only to gov.uk, inside your own application. A “sponsor”, agent or recruiter asking you to send the surcharge to them directly is running a scam — verify the employer on the UK sponsor register first, and check the amount against the per-year table above.

Paying from Nigeria: naira cards decline on gov.uk. Use a dollar card, domiciliary + prepaid, or someone abroad — the full decision tree.

FAQ