You must have a CAS before making an application as a Student. A CAS is an electronic document that your college, school or university issues when they make you an unconditional offer. It is stored on a database the Home Office can see.Your Student sponsor will send you a unique CAS reference number, which you will need to enter onto your online Student application form.

Your Student sponsor should also provide you with the information used to generate your CAS, usually called the 'CAS statement'. The CAS statement itself is not required for your Student application, but it gives you all of the information about your course and Student sponsor, and some of the information about money, that you need to complete your Student application form. Your application may be refused if there are any discrepancies between the information used by your institution to generate the CAS and the information on your application form, so contact your sponsor before you apply if you notice any details which might cause a problem.

If you currently have a Student visa for the UK, or if you previously had one (including a Tier 4 visa), or a pre-Tier 4 student visa, your CAS needs to confirm that you are making academic progress in your studies.  For information about this, see the Student and Child Student guidance.

You may obtain a CAS from several different institutions. However, before you apply for your Student visa you must decide where you intend to study and use the CAS from that institution in your application. At this point any other CAS that you have been issued with will become 'obsolete', and you cannot use them in a Student route application. When your Student visa is granted and you use it to enter the UK, you must study at the institution that issued your CAS.

'Financial requirements' refers to the need to show that you have enough money to pay for your course fees and your living costs. The Home Office calls this the 'financial requirements'.

For Student permission applications made in the UK from 9.00 am on 5 October 2020, you will be exempt from meeting the financial requirements if you have been living in the UK for 12 months or more with permission at the time of your application.

Course fees
You must have enough money to pay for the course fees for the first year of your course, or the entire course if it is less than one year long. If your CAS has been issued for further study on a course that you are already part-way through, the 'first year of study' means the first year of this new period of study. The Home Office will use the details in your CAS to confirm how much money you need for your course fees.
If you have already paid all your course fees, or for study abroad or other course with no fees, your CAS will confirm this.

Living costs
The Home Office uses fixed amounts, which may or may not reflect your actual living costs.

If you wish to study in London and submit your application after 9.00 am on 1 December 2020, you need £1,334 for each month of your course, up to a maximum of nine months. This means that if you will be studying in London for a course that lasts one month only, the amount that you will need is £1,334. If you will be studying in London for a course lasting nine months or more, the amount that you will need is £12,006. If you are not sure whether you will be studying in London, ask your Student sponsor.

For study elsewhere in the UK, the monthly amounts are lower: you need £1,023 for each month of your course, up to £9,207 for a course lasting nine months or more if you submit your application after 9.00 am on 1 December 2020.

Use the course start and end dates on your CAS to calculate the length of your course and therefore how many months' maintenance you will need. If the length of your course includes a part of a month, round it up to a full month.  For example if your course dates are 30 May until 1 October, this is four months and two days so you would need to show five months' of funds.

Deductions
You can deduct the following from the total amount of money that you need as part of your immigration application:
- money that you have already paid to your Student sponsor towards your course fees, and
- up to £1,334 that you have already paid to your Student sponsor for your accommodation fees, if you will be living in university or college accommodation.

You cannot deduct any advance payment for any other type of housing, nor can you adjust the amounts if you will have no housing costs (for example if you will be living with a relative free of charge).

Your CAS may include details of any money paid to your institution. If not, you will need to provide a paper receipt confirming how much you have paid towards your course fees and/or your accommodation fees.

Low-risk applicants who have a receipt do not need to include it with the application.

Student sponsors are required to assess your ability to read, write, speak and understand English. The method of assessment will vary. For example, there are special arrangements if you are a national of a majority English-speaking country, have a qualification taught in an English-speaking country, are spending no more than six months in the UK as part of a USA degree-level course, or plan to study at degree level at a UK higher education provider with a track record of compliance. Your Student sponsor will tell you how it will assess your English and the level of English you must have, which is subject to minimum levels set by the Home Office.

If you are required to take one of the Home Office's approved secure English language tests (SELTs) as evidence of your English language ability, your SELT must show that you achieved the required score in each of the components during a single sitting of that examination (unless you are exempt from a component due to a disability).

Only five test providers are considered to offer secure English language tests for UK visa purposes - IELTS SELT Consortium, Trinity College London, LanguageCert, Pearson and PSI Services (UK) Ltd. Trinity College London tests must be taken in the UK only. PSI Services (UK) Ltd tests must be taken overseas only. The three other providers' tests may be taken in the UK or overseas. A list of approved test centres can be found on the Home Office website.

Trinity College London tests can be booked online. If your Student application requires a CEFR level of B1 then you should select an 'ISE I (B1)' test.  If you need CEFR level B2 for your Student application then you should select an 'ISE level II (B2)' test.  You may find it easier to book a test by selecting the type of test and the location from the drop down menus at the top of the page.

Alternatively, UK Graduate can book the required test for you. Please let a member of the team know.

The application form requires you to declare any criminal convictions, including traffic offences, that you have obtained in any country, and to provide details. This is because the Immigration Rules include provision to refuse the application of someone with certain criminal convictions, under the general grounds for refusing (see next section). The Home Office's Student and Child Student guidance states that Home Office staff should check the Police National Computer to see if you are listed on it.

You are not required to obtain or include any specific evidence relating to the convictions.

The Immigration Rules include provision for an application to be refused under the 'general grounds for refusal'. The Home Office has detailed internal guidance on the general grounds for refusing, with separate guidance for applications in your home country (entry clearance) or applications in the UK (permission to stay). The guidance for permission to stay applications summarises that Home Office staff should be checking applications for:

“...evidence of any adverse
- behaviour (using deception including false representation, fraud, forgery, non-disclosure of material facts or failure to cooperate)
- character, conduct or associations (criminal history, deportation order, travel ban, exclusion, non-conducive to public good, national security)
- immigration history (breaching conditions, using deception in an application).”


‍The Home Office can also refuse your application if you have an outstanding debt for NHS treatment of £500 or more - see Health and Healthcare for information about receiving NHS treatment in the UK.

Other general grounds for refusal include staying in the UK beyond the end of your immigration permission (being an overstayer); health issues; not attending an interview if you are asked to do so; breach of conditions, which means doing something your immigration permission does not permit you to do, for example working more hours than allowed. The application form has questions about these matters and it is very important to answer them honestly, as not doing so can have very serious consequences including accusations of deception and the refusal of any future, as well as this, application.

Seek help and advice from your Student sponsor before you make your application if you think any of the general grounds for refusal might apply to you.

Your Student application must normally include your valid passport and all the documents listed in the application forms and guidance. Your passport must contain at least one full page that is blank on both sides.

Send the certificate or transcript of results for all qualifications listed in the 'Evidence used to obtain offer' section of your CAS. You also have the option of submitting print outs of your qualification or transcript results from the awarding body’s online checking service. The print outs must clearly show your name, the title and date of the award, and the name of the awarding body.

If you submit a print out of your qualification or transcript, the Home Office reserves the right to request the certificate of qualification, or transcript of results.  If you submit any certificates or transcripts that are not in English (or Welsh), you must also include a translation of each. Read the section on Translations for more details.

If you have already paid money to your institution for your course fees or accommodation, submit paper receipts with your application as evidence of this, unless this information is included in your CAS.

As evidence of your money, you can use any one or more of these forms of evidence:
- personal bank statements
- certificate(s) of deposit
- letter from your bank, or a regulated financial institution
- letter from an official financial sponsor
- letter from a regulated financial institution confirming that you have a loan from the national government, the state or regional government, or a government-sponsored student loan company
- letter from a regulated financial institution confirming that you have a loan that is part of an academic or educational loans scheme
- statements of a passbook from a building society

Using funds from an overseas bank account is permitted. Funds from an overseas account will not be considered by the Home Office however if any of the following apply:
- The Home Office is unable to make satisfactory verification checks of the overseas bank; or
- The overseas bank is not regulated by the appropriate regulatory body in the respective overseas country; or
- The overseas bank does not use electronic record keeping

Please refer to FIN 2.1 of Appendix Finance of the Immigration Rules for further details.

Official financial sponsors are defined in Appendix Finance and in the Student and Child Student guidance. The guidance sets out the requirements for an official financial sponsorship letter.

If your official financial sponsor is your university, you do not need a letter if the details of your financial sponsorship are on your CAS.  If your official financial sponsor is a government and they have sent you a sponsor letter by email, a print of this letter should be acceptable as evidence of the sponsorship. The entry clearance officer can still ask for an original letter, so it is a good idea to ask your government sponsor for a paper copy too.    

The list of acceptable official financial sponsors includes an 'international company'. The Home Office has not defined this but means a company with a trading presence (an office) in more than one country.

If you are a 'low-risk' applicant, you should obtain the sponsor letter and keep it safe, but you do not need to include it with your initial application.

If your official financial sponsor is not covering all of your course fees and maintenance, you must show that you have the rest of the money required.  You can use any combination of the forms of evidence listed above.

If your application includes any documents which are not in English or Welsh, you must also include a translation of each document. Each translation must contain:
- confirmation from the translator / translation company that it is an accurate translation of the original document
- the date of the translation
- the full name and signature of the translator, or of an authorised official of the translation company
- the contact details of the translator or translation company; and
- (if you are already in the UK and are applying for further leave) certification by a qualified translator and details of the translator or translation company’s credentials