How long can I stay in the UK on a visitor visa?
Short answer
Up to six months per visit. A visa may be valid for multiple entries over two or ten years, but no single stay can exceed six months, and the immigration officer decides the leave granted on arrival. Visitor visas cannot normally be extended or switched in-country.
A Standard Visitor Visa permits stays of up to six months at a time. Long-validity visas — commonly two or ten years — allow repeated entries within that period, but each individual visit is still capped at six months, and the leave actually granted is decided by the immigration officer when you arrive. Nationals of many countries can visit visa-free on the same six-month basis; check the GOV.UK visa checker before booking.
What you can and cannot do
- Permitted: tourism, visiting family, and a defined set of business activities — meetings, negotiations, conferences, seminars and briefings with UK contacts.
- Not permitted: work of any kind, including remote work paid by a UK employer while you are physically in the UK; claiming public funds; and studying for more than 30 days.
- You must satisfy the officer that you intend to leave at the end of the visit and have enough money to support yourself.
The standard short-term visa fee is currently £115. If the planned activity looks anything like employment for a UK entity, get advice from an OISC-regulated adviser before travelling — being refused entry at the border is far more damaging than delaying a trip.
Extending, switching and overstaying
Extensions from inside the UK are not normally possible; nor is switching from a visitor visa into a work or family route. If you want to stay longer or take up a job, you must leave and apply for the correct visa from abroad. There are very limited exceptions, such as a serious medical emergency, and they need to be evidenced.
Overstaying is serious — it can trigger a re-entry ban and will affect every future UK application, so plan departure dates with a margin.
If a visitor visa application is refused, the refusal letter gives the reasons. There is generally no right of appeal for visitor refusals: your options are to reapply having addressed each stated reason with better evidence — paying the fee again — or, where the refusal rests on an allegation such as deception, to take advice about a challenge before reapplying, because a fresh application that repeats the same weakness usually fails the same way.
Related guides
UK Visitor Visa Basics
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