Fee waiver applicants must match their visa route from October
06 Sep 2026
If you're applying for a fee waiver on a family or human rights based visa, a rule change starting 8 October 2026 affects the date the Home Office treats as your application date.
At the moment, if you ask for a fee waiver before making your full application, the date of that fee waiver request can count as your application date once you go on to submit the application. From 8 October 2026, that only works if the application you submit is for the same route you named in your fee waiver request. The new wording, added to paragraph 34G of the Immigration Rules, says that where you submit an application "on a route other than the route to which the fee waiver request relates, the date of application is the date on which that application is submitted, not the date of the fee waiver request."
You also need to move quickly once your fee waiver request is decided. The rules already require your full application, for permission on the route the waiver was for, to be submitted "within 10 working days of the receipt of the decision." Miss that window, or switch routes when you apply, and your application date moves forward. That can matter if you're close to your current visa expiring or need an earlier date for a continuous residence calculation.
What to do: when you request a fee waiver, make sure the route you name is the route you will actually apply on. If your circumstances change and you need a different route, be aware your application date may reset to the day you submit the new application, not the day you first asked for the waiver.
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