Counter-Trump | UK considers scrapping visa fee to attract world's best talent - would it work?

Earlier this week, news broke (courtesy of the FT) that Prime Minister Kier Starmer is considering scrapping visa application fees in a bid to attract the world’s best talent to the UK.

It came as US President Donald Trump moved in the opposite direction, leaving Fortune 500 firms reeling by announcing a shock $100,000 fee for H-1B visas.

The report from the Financial Times on Monday, 22 September, cited sources inside Number 10 and the Treasury, suggesting that Trump’s decision has put “wind in the sails” of the proposals from Starmer’s “global talent task force.”

On Tuesday, 23 September, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed as much. “While President Trump announced late last week that it will make it harder to bring talent to the US, we want to make it easier to bring talent to the UK,” she declared. “We are expanding our global talent and high-potential individual visa routes, and we're moving quickly to make those easier to access and more supportive of firms' ambitions to bring talent here.”