Visa Information

Please refer to the guidance provided by the Student Immigration Service when planning your travel arrangements.

Travelling to the UK

Applying for a visa

Completing your International Check-In

You may be able to Study English language in the UK on a short-term study visa

If you’ve been accepted onto an English language course that lasts longer than 6 months and up to 11 months in length and includes no other subjects, you will need to apply for the Short-term study visa (to study English).

With a short-term study visa, you cannot:

•    work whilst in the UK

•    bring dependants or family with you on this visa route

•    cannot extend this visa whilst in the UK and cannot switch to any other type of immigration permission whilst in the UK on this visa

We have detailed guidance pages about how to prepare your documents, how to complete an application and what you can/cannot do on this visa.

Please check the Short-term study visa guidance

However, students planning to progress from your English language programme at our University onto a University degree programme will need to apply for a Student visa instead.

It is important that you carefully consider your study plans before applying for our English language programme and arrange your visa appropriately and in time before the start of your course.

Applying for a Student visa

You will need to apply for a Student visa if you are a student:

• studying an English language programme of more than 11 months in length

and

• planning to progress from an English language programme onto a university main postgraduate degree programme

You will require a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) for your course before you can apply for a Student visa. You must submit a Student visa application from your home country and wait for a visa decision before planning to travel to the UK.

Additionally, to receive a CAS for our English language programmes, you must have a valid Academic English IELTS for UKVI certificate (IELTS for UKVI).

It is important that you carefully consider your study plans before applying for an English language programme and arrange your visa and travel appropriately.

Please check our detailed guidance pages about applying for a Student visa

CAS stands for Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies and is an electronic document issued by the University.

You will need a CAS to apply for a Student Visa.

Your CAS will either:

•    cover both the pre-sessional and the main degree course (combined CAS) 

OR

•    in some cases, the CAS will only cover the pre-sessional course (single CAS). Then later once you have progressed, you will need to prepare for a Student visa extension, where a second CAS (another single CAS) will be issued for your main degree.

If you receive a combined CAS, the Student visa would be long enough to complete both courses. 

If you do not meet the criteria for a combined CAS you will need to apply and be issued two separate single CAS: one for the pre-sessional course and another for the main degree course. You will receive information after starting your pre-sessional course about the visa extension process. You can request your second CAS, after successfully completing your pre-sessional course to make a Student visa extension application from inside the UK.

If you require further visa information, you will need to send an online enquiry to the University of Edinburgh’s dedicated Student Immigration Service.