UCAS applicants

Undergraduate fee status assessments at the University of Cambridge are carried out by either the central University, or by your College if you have applied to Christ's College. The assessment will be confirmed if you are offered a place on the course. Please note that all assessment decisions are governed by UK Government legislation, which means that the assessment will be the same regardless of whether your College or the University assess your fee status.

Most assessments will be based on the information provided in your application to Cambridge. If your fee status is uncertain, the University fees staff or the College will contact you to request additional information and supporting documents. This does not guarantee that you will be offered an interview or a place on the course.

Documents required for a fee status assessment

If your College or the central University has contacted you about your fee status, you will need to provide them with the following documents:

  • A completed Fee Status Assessment Questionnaire 
  • Evidence of your nationality or nationalities, plus your parent's citizenship if they're a British or Irish citizen and you're not a citizen of either country
  • Evidence of your UK immigration status (unless you are a British or Irish citizen), plus your parent's immigration status if they hold ILR, refugee status, or leave under the Ukraine Schemes AND you hold a different type of visa. See the 'Acceptable documents' section below.
  • Evidence of your country/countries of 'ordinary residence' throughout the three years leading up to the course's start date, selected from the 'Acceptable documents' below. Pease send us at least three different types of document e.g. one council tax bill, two bank statements, and one employment contract - noting the specific requirements for each document type explained below.

Not all British citizens are eligible for Home fees - so if your College or the University have contacted you, you will need to send them all of the above documents. Please see the FAQs below for more information. 

Acceptable documents

All documents MUST be submitted in PDF format (not .pages). Individual file sizes must not exceed 2.5MB.  Submitting oversized or incorrectly-formatted files will significantly delay your assessment.

  • Nationality: Passport or national ID card. 
  • UK immigration status (if not a British or Irish citizen): your immigration status share code (the code must start with an 'S'). Please include your parent's passport and  immigration status share code or proof of British/Irish citizenship if they hold ILR/British citizenship/Irish citizenship and you hold another type of visa.
  • Ordinary residence (three different documents from the list below covering the full period 1 October 2024 - 1 October 2027).

Please email us if your personal circumstances prevent you from accessing these documents, such as (but not limited to) family estrangement, seeking asylum, domestic violence, or spending time in care at any point during the last 3 years. We can advise you on alternative forms of evidence we can accept instead.

Ordinary residence documents

Please send us three types of residency evidence. If any documents being submitted are addressed to your parent or spouse, they must be accompanied by a copy of your full birth, adoption or marriage certificate showing their names as evidence of your relationship.

  • Bank statements showing in-person transactions during each of the three school summer holidays leading up to your planned course start date. These statements should relate to the main bank account used for in-person spending by you, or your parent(s) (in the case of students applying for an undergraduate course place). The account balance and transaction amounts can be redacted, but please leave the transaction date and payment description visible. Statements containing few in-person transactions and / or mainly direct debits or standing orders are not acceptable as they do not prove where the account holder was living during the specified time period.
  • Travel tickets (e.g. flight booking / Eurostar tickets) showing all journeys in and out of the country you've lived in since 1 August 2024. 
  • Employment contract(s) (in full) that were in use from 1 August 2024 onwards. This includes any contract extension letters, or employer letters confirming an overseas posting. Salary, bonuses and any additional allowance figures can be redacted as fee status assessments are not means-tested. 
  • Proof of continued professional registration in the UK
  • Utility bills for your home address for August 2024 and August 2026, including the pages showing actual usage. If you changed your address during this period, please provide a utility bill from August 2025 as well.
  • Council tax bills covering the periods August 2024 and August 2026.
  • Tenancy agreement(s) from 1 August 2024 onwards. We only need to see the pages confirming property address, tenants’ names and length of tenancy. If you are submitting tenancy documents, please include a bank statement from August 2024 and a utility bill from August 2026.
  • UK driving licence (including provisional licences).

 

Applicant questions

These FAQs refer to applicants and offer holders whose fee status assessments are undertaken by the central University.

Fee status is determined by a combination of three factors: nationality, immigration status, and country or countries of ordinary residence. British citizens who have lived or been educated in another country will need to provide further information to allow the fees staff to determine their country of ordinary residence during the three years leading up to their course start date. In some cases this will result in the student being assessed as Overseas.

The University may also contact you if you are a British citizen who was born outside the UK and subsequently moved here, as we will want to understand why you are now resident in the UK. If you have only been resident in the UK for the purposes of education, you may not be eligible for Home fee status. 

We will only ask you to submit additional documents if we cannot make a fully informed and accurate assessment without them. 

We assess fee status throughout the admissions process. All applicants to Medicine (UCAS course code A100) have their fee status assessed early on in the application process, as the UK government imposes an annual cap on the number of 'Overseas' Medicine students. Being contacted about your fee status does not mean that you will be offered a place - it simply shows that the University or your College required more information in order to make an assessment.

This depends on the complexity of your situation. For more complex assessments, it will depend on the time it takes for the student to get their supporting documents together. Providing all the required documents when requested will ensure a faster assessment.

Please refer to our web page Is my fee status correct? and to UKCISA's guidance. If you still believe that your fee status is incorrect, you can request a fee status reassessment from the office who carried out your original assessment. 

If the University carried out your assessment, please contact the fees staff at feestatusandpolicy@admin.cam.ac.uk. Applicants to Colleges who carry out their own assessments will need to contact their College admissions team. In either case, please send a completed Fee Status Assessment Questionnaire and supporting documents to the appropriate office. 

Don't worry! The number of applications and offers made each year means that the University cannot always confirm fee status by the time that an offer is made. However, your fee status will be confirmed as part of the offer whenever possible.

The fees staff prioritise assessments for any applicant whose fee status was still unclear at offer stage, to ensure that the offer holder has sufficient time to make a decision before their College's and UCAS's reply deadlines. Longer delays in making an assessment beyond that date are normally due to external factors, such as a change in immigration status.

The University takes its record management keeping responsibilities seriously and its Information and Compliance Office ensures that the institution complies with its legal responsibilities in this area. For further information on how the University obtains, retains and deletes applicant data and documents, please see the Statement published by the University's Information and Compliance Office.