Guides
Tracking your UK visa application: VFS, processing times and delays
Last updated 15 October 2026
On this page
You cannot see the progress of a UK visa application inside the Home Office. What you can see is where your documents and passport are, and whether the published processing time has passed. This guide explains both.
Tracking through VFS Global or TLScontact
If you applied from outside the UK you gave your biometrics at a visa application centre run by VFS Global (most countries) or TLScontact (Europe and some others). Their tracking page, using your reference number and date of birth, shows:
- when your application and passport were forwarded to UK Visas and Immigration;
- when the decision has been made and the passport is on its way back to the centre or by courier.
It does not tell you what the decision is. The decision letter, and for most routes an email telling you to collect or expect your passport, come from the Home Office. VFS and TLScontact cannot speed up a decision or tell you why it is taking time. Paid "keep my passport" and SMS services change nothing about the decision.
If you applied inside the UK you gave biometrics at a UKVCAS centre or through the ID Check app; there is no tracking page. The Home Office emails you when a decision is made, and your eVisa updates in your UKVI account.
Standard processing times
The Home Office publishes service standards, counted from the day you give your biometrics or verify your identity in the app:
| Application | Standard |
|---|---|
| Visit, study, work and most other routes, from outside the UK | 3 weeks |
| Partner and family visas, from outside the UK | 12 weeks |
| Most routes from inside the UK (work, study, family where all requirements are met) | 8 weeks |
| Family or private life applications where discretion is needed | up to 12 months |
| Settlement and British citizenship | usually within 6 months |
Some applications take longer: where documents need verifying, an interview is needed, there are criminal or security checks, or the Home Office writes for more evidence. If the Home Office expects to miss the standard it should email you.
Paying for a faster decision
- Priority service: decision within 5 working days (30 working days for family applications from outside the UK), £500 per applicant on top of the application fee.
- Super priority service: decision by the end of the next working day, £1,000 per applicant.
Both depend on availability in your country and route, and the Home Office does not guarantee the timescale; a complex case can still take longer, and refunds are not given where the delay is caused by a request for more evidence.
When the decision is late
- Check the standard above has actually passed from the biometrics date, not the submission date.
- Contact UK Visas and Immigration through the GOV.UK contact service, quoting your reference; keep a copy.
- If there is still no decision and the delay is causing real harm (a job offer, a child's schooling, separation from family), a pre-action protocol letter threatening judicial review for unreasonable delay often produces a decision within weeks. See Home Office delays.
- If you are in the UK and applied before your leave expired, your conditions continue under section 3C while you wait; you can usually keep working.
Do not travel outside the UK while an in-country application is undecided: leaving withdraws it.
Need advice on your own case?
Guides are general information, not advice on your situation. Ask a solicitor and we will reply by phone or email.
