“I can’t afford it” is a legal test, not a statement
Income, outgoings, housing and essential living needs are assessed against a specific standard, not taken at face value.
Immigration fees shouldn’t leave you without answers
Struggling to afford your immigration application fees? You may be able to apply for a fee waiver.
Our immigration solicitors can assess your circumstances and help prepare the financial evidence supporting your application.
Opens WhatsApp. No form, no waiting — speak to our immigration team directly.
Check Your Fee Waiver Options
- Regulated by the SRAYour case is in safe hands
- Experienced Immigration SolicitorsExpert guidance, every step of the way
- 4.8 Google ReviewsFrom 385 reviews, across the UK
- Personalised SupportClear advice. Real solutions.
20+ YearsIn practice
5,000+ CasesHandled
4.8 ★ GoogleFrom 385 reviews
SRA RegulatedSolicitors you can verify
Experience figure refers to Amir Masood, Solicitor & Director, who has worked in UK immigration law since 2004. Cases handled is a firm-wide figure across all immigration matters, not fee waiver requests alone.
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Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
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What actually decides it
A fee waiver is decided on evidence, not on explanation.
The Home Office does not weigh how difficult things are. It weighs what the documents show against a standard — which means a request stands or falls on how completely your circumstances are evidenced.
The evidence has to be complete
Partial bank statements, missing outgoings and unexplained deposits are among the commonest reasons these requests fail.
Children and dependants change the picture
Where children are involved, additional considerations apply and the evidence needs to reflect them.
A refusal costs time you may not have
A refused request can leave you facing a deadline on the underlying application with the clock already running.
What we do
How Aden & Co helps
An honest assessment first
Whether a fee waiver request is worth making in your circumstances — before you spend time preparing one.
The financial evidence, identified and organised
What is required, what is missing, and how the bundle needs to be put together so it can be read against the standard.
Prepared alongside the underlying application
The request and the application it supports are handled together, so the timing of one does not damage the other.
FLR(FP), family and human rights routes
The routes on which fee waiver requests are most often made, prepared by solicitors who work in immigration and nothing else.
Requests covering children and dependants
Where the request has to cover more than one person, the evidence has to account for each of them.
Refused requests, and whether to reapply
What the refusal actually turned on, what is open to you next, and whether reapplying is the right move.
The process
How we handle your case
01
Assessment of your financial circumstances
What you have coming in, what goes out, and how that sits against the standard.
02
Financial evidence reviewed and organised
Gaps identified, documents gathered, and the bundle put into order.
03
Fee waiver request prepared and submitted
The request is drafted, evidenced and submitted on your behalf.
04
Main application prepared once the outcome is known
The underlying application follows, prepared around the decision you have received.
Not sure whether your circumstances qualify?
A solicitor can tell you before you apply.
Amir Masood
Solicitor & Director · Head of Immigration · Over 20 years in immigration, human rights and asylum law.
Your enquiry goes straight to Amir. He has worked in UK immigration since 2004 and has been a solicitor since 2014, preparing fee waiver requests alongside the FLR(FP), family and human rights applications they support — through to appeals, the Upper Tribunal and judicial review. You will know exactly who is preparing your request and who to speak to about it: not an unregulated adviser, and not a call centre.
- Solicitor of England & Wales since 2014 · member of the Law Society
- Accredited under the Law Society’s Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme
- Master of Laws (LLM); Advocate of the High Court of Pakistan (2008)
- Fee waiver requests on FLR(FP), family and human rights applications
- Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority · SRA number 628536
Reviews
What clients say
★★★★★
“I received exceptional support from Amir Masood during a very challenging period of my visa process. His guidance, professionalism, and timely assistance made a significant difference.”
Al A. · Visa applicationRead on Google
★★★★★
“His attention to detail and great communication gave us confidence from the start. He was realistic with the time-frames involved and helped us to manage our expectations. After more than 10 years of refusals we are so grateful.”
Stephen B. · Visa after refusalsRead on Google
★★★★★
“Mr. Amir Masood is a highly professional, knowledgeable, and cooperative solicitor. He guided us through the entire process with clarity, patience, and expertise, making everything much easier to understand.”
Wardah F. · Immigration adviceRead on Google
Reviews are shown as published on our Google Business Profile — 4.8 from 385 reviews at the time of writing.
Clear fees
Know the legal fee before work begins
You will be told what our legal work costs, and what it covers, before we start. Nothing begins until you have agreed it in writing.
- The legal fee is agreed in writing before any work starts
- You are told what the fee covers and what falls outside it
- Our legal fee is separate from anything payable to the Home Office, and a fee waiver request concerns the Home Office fee, not ours
- If we do not think a fee waiver request is worth making in your circumstances, we will tell you that before any work is agreed
- [Fixed-fee arrangements — confirm the wording with the firm before publication]
Questions
Fee waivers, answered
A fee waiver request can generally be made alongside certain human rights-based applications, by applicants who can evidence that they are not in a position to pay the fee. It is not open on every route, and it is not decided on your word alone.
Whether it is available in your case turns on the route you are applying under and on what your circumstances can be shown to be. That is the first thing we check, and we will tell you plainly if the answer is no.
Expect to evidence the whole financial picture rather than one part of it: what you have coming in, what you are paying out, your housing costs and your essential living needs, along with the accounts those movements pass through.
Completeness matters more than volume. Statements with gaps in them, outgoings that are described but not documented, and deposits with no explanation attached are among the commonest reasons a request fails. What exactly is required depends on your circumstances, so we work that out with you rather than handing you a generic list.
The application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge are separate charges, and what a fee waiver request can cover is set by Home Office policy — which changes.
We will tell you what the position is for your route at the point you instruct us, rather than publish something here that may since have moved. Do not assume a waiver covers everything payable.
Processing times are set by the Home Office and they change, so no timescale is published here.
The point that matters for planning is the sequence: a fee waiver request is normally decided before the application it supports, so it affects your timing as well as your costs. If you are working to a deadline, that sequence is worth understanding before you start.
A refusal is not necessarily the end of it, but it does start a clock. You are generally given a short period in which to pay the fee or take another step, and that period can be very short.
What is open to you depends on why it was refused — frequently the evidence rather than the circumstances. Take advice on the refusal before you either pay or reapply, because the reasons given shape which of those is the right move.
A request can generally cover dependants applying at the same time, and where children are involved there are additional considerations that the evidence needs to reflect.
It is not simply a matter of adding names. The financial picture has to account for each person the request covers, which is worth getting right first time.
The request is decided separately from the application it supports, and making one is a normal part of the process rather than something held against you.
Where it does bear on the main application is timing — because the request is normally decided first, and because the financial circumstances you evidence may also be relevant to the application itself. That is the reason we prepare the two together.
Immigration rules, Home Office fees, the Immigration Health Surcharge, fee waiver policy and processing times all change. Nothing on this page states an eligibility criterion as settled fact, and nothing on it is legal advice on your individual case.
Find out where you stand before the deadline arrives.
Speak to an SRA-regulated immigration solicitor about your circumstances, your evidence and your underlying application.
Call 07878 658865Your enquiry goes to our legal team, is treated in confidence, and commits you to nothing. Nothing starts until the legal fee is agreed in writing.