Colombians pursuing English courses in the UK will no longer need a visa

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22-OCT-2022 | The United Kingdom is removing its visitor visa requirement for Colombians as of 9 November 2022.

The British government has announced that Colombians visiting the United Kingdom will no longer need a visa from November 9, in a landmark move that could see an influx of Colombians pursuing English courses and short programs. Colombians will be able to travel to the UK and stay for up to six months for tourism, business, or short-term study. The document also states that Guyana and Peru will also benefit from the decision, with their visitor visas also being scrapped.

Although the news has been well received amongst English teaching schools, agents and students, due to the peso still not reaching pre-pandemic levels, the sentiment is that little will change in the near future in student booking numbers.

Colombians have long been able to travel to the 26 European countries in the Schengen Area without a visa. But the same has not been true of the United Kingdom, which has maintained its visitor visa requirement for Colombian nationals. That visa requirement has been accompanied as well by processing times of up to 60 days, and an additional expense for visa fees of 173 dollars per applicant.

Colombian students have shown increased interest in enrolling in English programs in the United States. Colombia was recently labelled a “booming market for English language training” by EnglishUSA. In Canada, Colombia is also in the top 10 source countries for the English language teaching sector. Australia, however, lost some of its Latin American market share to Canada, possibly helping Canada’s encouraging performance. But, with the UK now easier to visit, some predict that Colombians may change their minds about destination countries.

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