UK Visas and Immigration says student applications should be decided within three weeks, but some students wait as long as four months. Even the priority service, which costs an extra £500, is running late, leaving applicants at risk of losing places and missing the start of courses.
The Home Office’s visa delays and an increase in visa refusals have also left universities concerned about recruitment and finances. Some students have paid hundreds of pounds to rearrange flights; others have missed the first weeks of study.
One applicant, a 19-year-old Armenian-Russian national living in northern Cyprus, met the grades for a law place at a Russell Group university. She graduated from a British-curriculum school in summer 2025 but missed the final enrolment date of 15 October while waiting for a decision.
She withdrew her application and asked the university to defer her offer so she could try again this May. She received a refusal on 3 October, which she believes was inaccurate.
“I've watched so many of my friends start their universities, have new social lives, pursue their futures, they've been waiting for me in the UK and I've been telling them yes I can come this year, but I've been let down.”
The June compliance rules cut the refusal threshold
Universities face a tighter Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA), which sets limits on refusal, enrolment and completion rates. Rules introduced in June lowered the required student visa refusal rate from below 10% to below 5%. Institutions must also achieve an enrolment rate of at least 95%.
The completion threshold remains 85% during a transitional year, then rises to 90% from June 2027. A traffic-light system can bring regulatory attention before an institution fails the assessment.
Universities have withdrawn offers, including to applicants from Pakistan and Nigeria, amid concern about breaching the requirements. Students can apply for a study visa only after receiving an offer. If a university revokes it, the associated visa application is withdrawn.
The Financial Times analysed Home Office data showing that 10.5 per cent of UK study visa applications were withdrawn in the first half of 2026, compared with 2.3 per cent in the same period the previous year and 0.4 per cent in 2023. The country figures also rose sharply:
| Applicants | Withdrawn in first half of 2026 | Earlier comparison |
|---|---|---|
| All applicants | 10.5 per cent | 2.3 per cent in the first half of 2025; 0.4 per cent in 2023 |
| Pakistan | 40.9 per cent | 3 per cent in the first half of 2025 |
| Nigeria | 22.7 per cent | 4.5 per cent in the first half of 2025 |
| Bangladesh | 23.5 per cent | 7.1 per cent in the first half of 2025 |
| India | 5.2 per cent | 1.2 per cent in the first half of 2025 |
University representatives said offer withdrawals increased as visa refusals doubled in the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. They linked the rise in refusals to increased scrutiny of nationalities the government suspects may use the student route to claim asylum.
Leaders describe inconsistent decisions and recruitment pullbacks
Vanessa Wilson, chief executive of University Alliance, which represents 20 professional and technical universities, said the group had “grave concerns” about delays and refusals and their effects on recruitment and university finances. She described decisions as “fairly arbitrary and unpredictable,” raising questions about consistency and proportionality.
The alliance cited a student whose place was lost after officials said financial documents arrived late, although emails showed they were submitted on time. Another applicant was refused a research master's visa over an alleged lack of understanding of the course, despite answers that accurately reflected the programme. Other universities have cited refusals involving people who had considered studying in other countries, or a PhD applicant asked to name course modules that did not exist for that course.
Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor of the University of Sunderland, said several universities had responded to the spike in refusals by retreating from markets facing tougher scrutiny. Jamie Arrowsmith, director of Universities UK International, acknowledged the need to maintain confidence in the immigration system, but said processing had become “markedly less predictable.”
“Many refusals appear to rest on flawed, inconsistent and highly subjective reasoning, forcing universities to withdraw offers at scale to avoid breaching compliance thresholds.”
Professor Steven McGuire, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia, said his institution began withdrawing offers from some countries late last year. In one case, he said, an interviewer seemed unaware that UEA was in Norwich and rejected an applicant for not knowing where they would study.
“We were getting some very arbitrary and ill-informed refusals,” McGuire said. He warned universities could “double down on China and India,” where refusal rates are lower, and said institutions were “running out of options except a very significant resizing of the sector.”
Professor James Miller, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of Scotland and convener of Universities Scotland, called some decisions “extremely spurious.” He said the department offered “no real explanation [for the increase] other than concern about number of students claiming asylum”. Miller said some universities had stopped recruiting in certain regions to keep their rates below 5 per cent.
He warned that many institutions could see overseas student numbers fall by more than 20 per cent this year, making job cuts “inevitable” without a policy change. Wilson said the response could lead to “restructures, which inevitably results in job losses, course closures, campus closures.”
January starts and applications fell
Home Office data recorded 19,800 main applicants for sponsored study visas in January 2026, 31 per cent fewer than in the previous January and the lowest January total in at least four years. A British Universities' International Liaison Association survey found international enrolments for that intake averaged 31 per cent below January 2025. Seventy per cent of universities reported fewer international postgraduate starts.
Pakistan saw particularly steep declines: 82 per cent of institutions reported falling Pakistani enrolments, with an average drop of 75 per cent. India and Bangladesh also recorded widespread falls. Research from the Chartered Association of Business Schools found 70 per cent of business schools offering January 2026 entry offered it only at postgraduate level. Common programmes included accounting and finance, finance, international business, management and marketing.
Study visa applications fell 19 per cent to 352,500 in the year ending September 2026 compared with the previous year, following stricter rules introduced by Labour. A visa ban also applies to nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. Universities UK, which represents 142 universities, estimates that one cohort of international students generates £40bn in net benefit for Britain over the course of its studies.
The department said international students “make a positive contribution” to Britain, but that recruitment must protect the integrity of the immigration system. Enroly, a company that processes visa applicants, estimated that refusal rates at almost half of universities exceeded the 5 per cent threshold that could lead to a ban on recruiting international students. About 15 universities are thought to have suspended recruitment from Pakistan entirely this year, while students from almost 15 countries are affected.
Smaller teaching-focused universities rely more heavily on students from Pakistan, Nigeria and India, and university leaders say the rules do not affect institutions evenly. Vice-chancellors are seeking clarity from the government on how it assesses refusal rates.
