Tuition fee deposits for Masters applicants

Tuition fee deposits are paid by taught postgraduate applicants who will need a Student visa in order to study in the UK and require a CAS from the University to make a visa application.

If you are fully funded by a University-recognised sponsor, you do not need to pay the deposit but will need to provide a valid financial guarantee or final award letter instead.

If your scholarship covers only part of your tuition fee, you will be required to pay the deposit.

If the amount you will be paying yourself is less than £1,500, you will need to pay your portion alongside providing your sponsor letter in order to receive a CAS.

If you will be studying a taught postgraduate course that is delivered through online/distance learning, and therefore do not require a CAS or visa to study in the UK, you do not need to pay the deposit. 

The tuition fee deposit is £1,500 but you can pay more if you wish. The deposit will be deducted from your course fee, so it is not an additional cost.

After you have accepted an unconditional offer, the University will email you to confirm your acceptance and request your deposit payment or exemption evidence.

Please do not pay the tuition fee deposit before you have received the email request or when your offer is conditional.

If you will be studying a summer pre-sessional English course on campus at the University of Leeds Language Centre before your Masters programme, please refer to our information on summer pre-sessional English courses for payment deadlines.

Offer holders for Masters courses with Leeds University Business School need to pay the deposit or provide evidence of funding by 23 August 2023. 

For other Masters courses, there is no formal deadline to pay the deposit or provide evidence of full funding. However, we recommend that you do so as soon as you are able after receiving the request email. It is your responsibility to complete this stage with enough time for a CAS to be issued ahead of applying for your visa.

Please note that the University reserves the right not to assign a CAS if there is not enough time between the deposit payment or sponsor letter being received and the latest possible date to join your course.

Once the University has contacted you to request your deposit, you will need to respond to a Deposit and Exemption message in the application portal to confirm you will be paying the deposit. You will then be able to see a new section in the portal called My CAS Payments, where you will need to read and accept the terms and conditions of the deposit process before you can proceed to the payment stage.

You can pay either by credit or debit card using our online payment system or by bank transfer via Flywire (a payment service for overseas student fees).

Please note that we do not accept direct bank transfers.

It is possible to pay the deposit using more than one card, if needed.

Please allow three working days for your payment to be processed. We will then send you a confirmation email and the payment will be visible in the My CAS Payments section of your portal.

You do not need to notify us once you have paid. 

Once the University has contacted you to request your deposit, you will need to respond to a Deposit and Exemption message in the application portal to confirm that you are fully sponsored and provide a final award letter or financial guarantee as proof. Your evidence will then be reviewed and we will email you to confirm whether we have been able to exempt you from paying the deposit.

We are not able to exempt applicants on the basis of a scholarship application or conditional award letter. If you do not have a final award letter at the point of receiving the email, please wait until you are able to provide it before responding to the Deposit and Exemption message.

Please note that the deposit is not refundable in the event of an unsuccessful funding application. If you are reliant on a full fee scholarship or sponsorship award, we advise that you do not pay the deposit while you await the outcome of your scholarship application, as you may not be eligible for a refund.

For deposit exemption purposes, your sponsor letter must:

• Be from a University-recognised sponsor (this includes governments, corporations/employers, charities and universities, but does not include family members or friends)
• Be clearly legible and written in English
• Be on official letter-headed paper
• Include the official financial sponsor's name and contact details
• Include your name
• Be dated within the current academic year or clearly state which academic year the sponsorship is for
• Specify the amount of money that the official financial sponsor is paying or state that the sponsor will cover all course fees
• Be final and unconditional.

Please note that you will also be required to provide your letter to the Fees team when you register as a student, so that your sponsor can be invoiced, and additional criteria may apply at that time. For more information, please see our fees guidance for sponsored students.

If you will be receiving the US Federal Loan you are not required to pay the deposit. Once you accept your unconditional offer you will receive an email requesting that you complete the Deposit and Exemption message in your application portal to confirm your funding. You should select ‘US Federal Loan recipient’ from the options given.

There is no need to provide any evidence as the funding is arranged internally by the University, so you will automatically be exempted from paying the deposit once your loan is confirmed.

All students taking a summer pre-sessional English language course on campus at the University of Leeds before their Masters course need to pay the deposit before starting the pre-sessional. Please refer to our information on summer pre-sessional English courses for payment deadlines.

As you will need to pay the tuition fee for your pre-sessional English course before you register as a student, we encourage you to pay this in full at this stage, rather than paying the £1,500 deposit only, but this is not a requirement.

Students who complete a summer pre-sessional are not required to pay a second deposit towards your Masters course.

If you have an alternative immigration status that means you do not require a Student visa to study in the UK (such as indefinite leave to remain), you will need to confirm this in response to the Deposit and Exemption message in the application portal and upload your evidence. If it is approved, you will be exempted from paying the deposit and we will not send you a CAS.

Your offer will remain valid until the course begins; however, by paying the deposit (or providing appropriate sponsorship evidence) you are showing your commitment to the University of Leeds and this enables your application to proceed to the stage where you can receive a CAS and register for your course.

Your right to a deposit refund is limited to the following circumstances:

• If you request a refund within 14 days of the payment being received by the University of Leeds.
• If your visa application is refused (unless the refusal is due to a fraudulent application). 
• If you provide appropriate evidence that you have secured sponsorship and your sponsor pays your tuition fees in full. 

Unless your fees are being paid in full by a sponsor, if you receive a deposit refund your course offer will be withdrawn and cannot be reinstated.

You must submit your refund request through the My Enquiries section of the application portal, along with any supporting evidence. 

If your request is approved, we will try to issue your refund within 14 days, though please note that bank processing times can vary and are out of our control. A refund can only be made to the account from which the original payment was made.

We will issue your CAS as soon as we can after you have supplied all necessary data (eg passport details) and either paid your tuition fee deposit or provided appropriate evidence of full funding. You do not need to contact us to request a CAS.

Under Home Office rules, the earliest that we can issue a CAS is six months before the start of your course. For further information about visas, please see our Student visa application guidance. 

You can contact us through the My Enquiries section of the application portal or email the admissions team: study@leeds.ac.uk.