UK Graduate Route Visa: 18 Months from January 2027

If your Graduate visa application is made on or after 1 January 2027, and you completed a course at UK bachelor's degree or master's degree level, your permission to stay will be 18 months instead of 2 years. The same graduate applying before 1 January 2027 still gets the full 2 years. Doctoral graduates are untouched by this change and continue to get 3 years. Note this carefully: the cut-off runs on the date the application is made, not the date you graduated or the date your course started.

This is written into the UK Immigration Rules, in Appendix Graduate, at rule GR 8.1. That single rule is the whole story, and everything below is built out of it.

The Graduate Route is the UK post-study work permission. It lets a student who has finished a UK course stay on for a fixed block of time to work or to look for work. From January 2027, that block gets shorter for bachelor's and master's graduates.

The trigger is the application date, not your convocation, not your dissertation submission, not the day your results were published. And if you are finishing a PhD in the UK, the 18-month figure is simply not your figure.

Because the rule keys off the application date, you can map your own situation on a calendar right now. Three practical things control when you are actually able to apply: you must be inside the UK, your current visa must still be a Student visa or a Tier 4 General student visa, and your education provider must have told the Home Office that you successfully completed your course. Until that confirmation reaches the Home Office, the application cannot succeed. That is where students lose months without realising it, because a course ending in one calendar year can easily produce a completion confirmation in the next one.

So if your course wraps up near the end of 2026, chase your registry or international office for that completion confirmation. Ask in writing, keep the reply, and ask specifically whether it has gone to the Home Office. Six months of extra permission can hang on an administrative step nobody is chasing.

GOV.UK sets out the conditions plainly. You can apply for a Graduate visa if all of the following are true:

• you are in the UK
• your current visa is a Student visa or a Tier 4 General student visa
• you studied a UK bachelor's degree, postgraduate degree or other eligible course for a minimum period of time with that Student visa or Tier 4 General student visa
• your education provider has told the Home Office that you have successfully completed your course

Note the third condition carefully. It is about studying in the UK on the right visa for a minimum period, not merely holding a UK qualification. And note the fourth again, because it is the one an applicant cannot fix alone: the confirmation comes from your education provider, not from you.

Two separate payments sit on top of each other.

• Application fee: 937 pounds.
• Healthcare surcharge: usually 1,035 pounds for each year you will be in the UK. It is charged on a per-year basis, so the total depends on the length of permission involved.

Budget for both together. Families often plan only for the visa fee and get caught out by the healthcare surcharge, which is paid as part of the same process.

The Graduate Route exists to give you room to find your feet in the UK job market after your course. It is a bridge, not a destination. It comes with clear exclusions:

• you cannot claim most benefits, which the rules call public funds
• you cannot claim the UK State Pension
• you cannot work as a professional sportsperson

Anything a consultancy blog claims beyond these points should be checked against GOV.UK itself. Immigration content ages badly, and this route is changing.

This is what the shorter permission really squeezes. You cannot extend a Graduate visa. What you can do is switch to a different visa, for example a Skilled Worker visa. For a bachelor's or master's graduate applying from January 2027, that job search has to start on day one of the 18 months, not in the last quarter of it.

1. Work out the exact end date of your Graduate visa the moment it is granted, and put it somewhere you will see it.
2. Target employers who are set up to support a work visa, rather than applying blind and raising the question at the offer stage.
3. Keep every payslip, contract and offer letter from the start. Switching applications ask for documents, and rebuilding them in the final weeks is misery.
4. Decide your fallback early. An orderly return home beats a panicked one.

Be clear about this, because bad advice floats around study-abroad groups. The RTI Act 2005 binds Indian public authorities. It does not bind the UK Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration, or a British university. You cannot file an RTI application about your Graduate visa, and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. Records held on the UK side have to be chased through UK channels, not through an Indian public authority.

What the RTI Act is genuinely powerful for is the Indian half of a study-abroad journey, which is usually where the silent delays happen:

• A stalled education loan at a public sector bank. Public sector banks are public authorities. If a sanction, disbursement or subsidy claim is stuck, you can ask for the file notings on your application, the reasons recorded for the delay, and the internal timeline the branch is supposed to follow.
• Consular and attestation services. Questions about how the Ministry of External Affairs has handled your documents, including apostille or attestation processing, can be raised through an RTI application.
• Passport and police verification. A verification report that has vanished between the police station and the passport office is a classic RTI target.

Keep the request narrow and factual. Ask for the current status, the date the file moved, the desk holding it, and the reasons recorded, rather than a broad question about policy. The AI RTI Drafter turns a plain-English complaint into a properly framed application, the Timeline Tracker tells you where you stand once the clock is running, and if the reply comes back evasive, run it through the PIO Reply Checker before escalating with the First Appeal Builder. For the full method, see The RTI Playbook.

It depends entirely on when the application is made. Made before 1 January 2027, a bachelor's or master's level graduate gets 2 years. Made on or after 1 January 2027, the same graduate gets 18 months. Finishing your course in 2026 does not by itself protect you, because the confirmation from your education provider has to reach the Home Office before your application can succeed.

No. Doctoral graduates continue to get 3 years, and rule GR 8.1 is not changing that. The reduction from 2 years to 18 months applies to courses at UK bachelor's degree or master's degree level.

No. You must be in the UK when you apply. That is why students are advised not to book a flight home the moment exams end without first sorting out the application.

No. You cannot extend a Graduate visa. You may be able to switch to a different visa instead, for example a Skilled Worker visa. Because there is no extension, the length you are granted is a hard ceiling.

Chase it in writing and be specific. Ask whether the confirmation of successful completion has gone to the Home Office and, if not, when it will. Your application depends on that step, and it is the thing most likely to push your application date past 1 January 2027 without you noticing.

The application fee is 937 pounds. Separately, the healthcare surcharge is usually 1,035 pounds for each year you will be in the UK, charged on a per-year basis, so the total depends on the length of permission involved.

No. On a Graduate visa you cannot claim most benefits, which the rules describe as public funds, and you cannot claim the UK State Pension. You also cannot work as a professional sportsperson.

Yes. Your current visa must be a Student visa or a Tier 4 General student visa, and your qualifying study must have been done in the UK on that visa for a minimum period. A qualification obtained without that student permission does not make you eligible.

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• UK Immigration Rules, Appendix Graduate, rule GR 8.1: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-graduate
• GOV.UK, Graduate visa guidance on eligibility, fees and conditions: https://www.gov.uk/graduate-visa