The UK High Potential Individual (HPI) visa lets a recent graduate of a listed overseas university live and work in the UK for two years without a sponsor or a job offer. Whether you qualify depends on whether your university appears on the Home Office list for the year your degree was awarded. Timing now matters for two reasons. The current list covers awards made between 1 November 2025 and 31 October 2026, and since 4 November 2025 the route has been capped at 8,000 applications a year. We check the list with graduates in our Dubai and Abu Dhabi offices most weeks, and this guide sets out what we check, what the route costs and who it suits.<\/p>\n
The route sits alongside the Skilled Worker<\/a> and Global Talent routes, but you qualify on where and when you studied rather than on an employer or an endorsing body. You can work in most jobs, look for work or be self-employed, and your partner and children can join you. You cannot claim most public funds. The visa cannot be extended, and you cannot apply to settle from it. You can apply for HPI only once, and not at all if you have already held a Graduate visa or came to the UK under the Doctorate Extension Scheme.<\/p>\n UK Visas and Immigration publishes the list at gov.uk\/government\/publications\/high-potential-individual-visa-global-universities-list<\/a>. The list that applies to you is the one covering the month and year your qualification was awarded, not the year you apply. The publication currently holds the lists for 2020 to 2025; the 2019 list was removed on 4 November 2025 as no longer in scope.<\/p>\n The Home Office caseworker guidance (updated 3 August 2026) sets out the method. A non-UK university is included if it sits within the first 100 places of at least two of three rankings: the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities. The Home Secretary can exclude institutions. Because the rankings are published between June and October, the list is compiled once a year after the last of them appears. The 4 November 2025 change, which followed the May 2025 Immigration White Paper, doubled the list and introduced the 8,000 cap. Gov.uk says the online application will tell you if the limit has been reached.<\/p>\n As at 27 August 2026 the list names 80 universities: 33 in the United States, 7 in China, 6 in Australia, 5 in Hong Kong, 4 each in Germany, France and Sweden, 3 each in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Canada, 2 each in Japan, Singapore and South Korea, and 1 each in Belgium and Denmark. UK universities are never on the list; a UK graduate uses the Graduate visa instead. No university in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, India, Pakistan or the Philippines appears. That absence rules out most of the graduates who ask us about this route.<\/p>\n Your award must be equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree, a postgraduate degree or a doctorate, and it must have been made within the 5 years before you apply. Under Appendix High Potential Individual the degree carries 50 of the 70 points required; English and finances carry 10 each. Ecctis must confirm that the qualification is genuine and at the right level. The check costs \u00a3252 including VAT, and an earlier Ecctis certificate can be reused. Ecctis does not check whether your university is on the list, so you need to do that yourself before paying for the check.<\/p>\n You must show English at CEFR B2 in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Gov.uk accepts a UK school qualification such as a GCSE or A Level, a degree awarded by a UK institution, a non-UK degree taught in English (Ecctis issues a confirmation code alongside the level check), or a Secure English Language Test (SELT) from an approved provider. Nationals of certain listed countries are exempt.<\/p>\n You need at least \u00a31,270 held for 28 consecutive days, with day 28 falling within 31 days of the application date. Dependants need \u00a3285 for a partner, \u00a3315 for the first child and \u00a3200 for each further child. Anyone who has been in the UK on a valid visa for at least 12 months does not need to show savings. The application fee is \u00a3880 per person. The Immigration Health Surcharge is \u00a31,035 per year, which comes to \u00a32,070 for a 2-year visa or \u00a33,105 for a 3-year doctoral visa.<\/p>\n Most people who qualify for HPI are choosing between it and one of these two routes. We cover each in its own guide: the Skilled Worker visa from the UAE<\/a> and the Global Talent visa from the UAE<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Global Universities List: how it is built and where to check it<\/h2>\n
What the 2025 list looks like<\/h3>\n
Eligibility in detail<\/h2>\n
The qualification<\/h3>\n
English<\/h3>\n
Money and fees<\/h3>\n
HPI compared with Skilled Worker and Global Talent<\/h2>\n