Student visa CAS deposits – Frequently Asked Questions

If you are an international student and you have applied for our Engineering and Physical Sciences Foundation Certificate through the University of Nottingham International College (Kaplan pathway), this process will require a CAS deposit of £5,000 from you, to be paid to the College.

Applications and deposits for the University of Nottingham International College's foundation programmes are handled by the College. For further guidance on the deposit process, please contact the University of Nottingham International College.

If you have applied through UCAS to study a foundation course at Nottingham, you will not be required to pay a tuition fee deposit. You should respond to your offer through the standard UCAS process.

If you are an international student who will require a student visa to study in the UK and you have applied for a one-year full time postgraduate taught masters degree course at the University of Nottingham, you will be required to pay CAS deposit of £2,000 (when you have firmly accepted an unconditional offer) as part of the process for preparing your student visa application. This requirement extends to an includes those that will have an integrated CAS to cover a CELE course and a postgraduate taught masters course.

Exceptions apply for:

• applicants who will complete a CELE presessional English course,on a single CAS, immediately prior to their postgraduate taught masters course
• applicants whose tuition fees will be paid by the University, a recognised sponsor, or whose full fees will be covered by a US Federal Student Aid loan. See below for further information.

Please note that we do not require a tuition fee deposit for bachelors degree courses, any other undergraduate programmes, or any research-based postgraduate courses (including PhD, MPhil, MA by research, MSc by research and MRes programmes).

You must pay the CAS deposit so that an electronic Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) can be issued. A CAS is an essential document for students applying for a visa under the Student route. We can only issue a CAS for applicants who have received an unconditional offer, firmly accepted their offer, and paid any necessary CAS deposit. For further information about the CAS process, please see your CAS.

Paying the CAS deposit shows a firm commitment to study at Nottingham, which is why we can only issue a CAS to taught masters students who have paid this deposit (or provided proof of full sponsorship). Your deposit is an advance payment of tuition fees and will be deducted from the fees charged to you after you register for your course.

You should pay as soon as you receive an unconditional offer which you firmly accept. Paying the CAS deposit will then enable us to issue your CAS document as early as possible which you will need in order to make a student visa application.

You can submit a visa application up to six months before the start date of your course. We advise you to make your visa application as soon as possible once you have your CAS and all of the necessary supporting documentation.

If your course will commence within the next month and you have not yet paid your CAS deposit, see below to make sure you are aware of the final deadline.

If you are preparing to study a postgraduate taught masters programme this year, you should only pay the CAS deposit when you are holding an unconditional offer which you have firmly accepted.
 
If your offer is conditional, you must meet all the conditions of your offer and receive an unconditional offer before paying your deposit. We cannot issue a CAS to any student with a conditional offer as it is not possible to apply for a student visa with a conditional offer.
 
If you decide to defer your offer to the next academic year, you will be required to pay the CAS deposit as part of the deferral process, even if your offer is still conditional. Please see below for further information.

For a taught masters programme the CAS deposit will be £2,000. The maximum amount you can pay is the full tuition fee for your masters course.

The quickest and easiest way to pay the deposit is via MyNottingham using a credit or debit card.

Alternative payment options are also available through the link to Student Fees and Payments page below.

If you pay online for your taught masters CAS deposit of £2,000, you will be able to print a receipt when the payment is made and you will be able to see the payment in the Finance area of your MyNottingham portal. The payment will also be included on the CAS which we issue in order for you to make your student visa application. We do not automatically issue receipts in hard copy.

For a taught masters programme, we recommend that you decide how much you want to pay (bearing in mind the minimum amount of £2,000 and the maximum of your full course fee) and that you make only one payment if possible.

This will enable us to issue your CAS without complication or delay and to ensure that the full amount you have paid is reflected in the CAS in the first instance. If you make additional payments these will be added to your CAS but there may be a delay in this showing. You should wait until you receive confirmation from us that the payments have been added before making your visa application.

We recommend that you pay the CAS deposit as soon as you have firmly accepted an unconditional offer to study at Nottingham so that we can prepare your CAS as early as possible. We cannot issue a CAS to any new students who are based overseas after their course has commenced.

The latest date we can issue a CAS to any new overseas student for courses starting on Monday 23 September 2024 is on Wednesday 18 September 2024. You must meet all offer conditions and receive an unconditional offer by Friday 9 September, and pay the deposit by Friday 13 September 2024.

For students commencing courses at any time of the year, the latest date we can issue a CAS will be three working days before the official start date of the course. The deposit must be paid (and all your conditions met) at least seven days before this.

If you are paying your deposit close to these deadlines, check our guidance on late arrival and make sure you can arrive in Nottingham before our registration deadline.

Please note that from 9 April 2024, the University will introduce a new process for the consideration of CAS deposit refunds. Please see below for the process applicable to your CAS deposit.

For CAS deposits paid before 9 April 2024, if you do not attend your course through no fault of your own and do not request deferral to the next academic year, we will refund your CAS deposit payment minus a £100 administration fee. This is done on request in writing (by email or via our enquiry form) to Admissions no later than one calendar month after the intended start date of your course. Requests made after this time will not be considered.

For CAS deposit paid on or after 9 April 2024, the below policy applies.

Approved CAS deposit refunds (see criteria below) will be made minus a £100 administration fee, and will only be processed at the start of the academic year to which you have applied.

All refund requests must be made in writing (by email or via our enquiry form) to Admissions no later than one calendar month after the intended start date of your course. Requests made after this time will not be considered.

If you defer your offer to the following year, the University will retain your deposit for the following year. You may only defer your offer once, and if you decline your deferred offer the deposit will not be refundable. If you apply again in a future year and receive a new offer, you must then pay a new deposit.

If you have paid a CAS deposit to the University of Nottingham International College for a foundation programme you can claim a refund from the College directly under its own refund policies.

Approval Criteria

Subject to the above, a refund of the CAS deposit will generally only be approved if one of the following criteria applies:

• Your refund request is made within 14 days of the initial payment
• Your visa application has been refused
• You were unable to meet the conditions of your offer

Further information on the application of each criterion is provided below.

You may request a refund for any reason within 14 calendar days of the payment date.

In the event that your visa application is refused, you may be eligible for a refund of your CAS deposit. However, you must provide official evidence of your visa refusal and this is also subject to verification by the University. If the refusal was due to fraudulent documentation or conditions which you could have foreseen (as determined by University), you will not be eligible for a refund.

If you have paid your CAS deposit whilst your offer is still conditional and then were unable to meet the conditions of your offer, you may be eligible for a refund. You must provide evidence that you have attempted to meet those conditions after payment was made (e.g. academic results or English language test results), which will then be assessed by the University. If you have not attempted to meet your conditions since payment was paid, you will not be eligible for a refund.

In the unlikely event that the degree programme is cancelled, you will receive a full refund of your deposit.

Refund requests falling outside the defined criteria above will only be considered in the most exceptional circumstances on a case by case basis by the Head of Admissions and Head of Visa and Immigration.

We can waive the CAS deposit requirement for students whose fees will be fully paid by a recognised sponsor, upon receipt of appropriate evidence. If you are fully sponsored for your course fees, please provide a copy of your sponsorship letter by uploading it to your MyNottingham account. Find out how to provide your sponsorship letter.

The University will only accept sponsorship letters from recognised sponsors (overseas governments, international businesses, universities, trusts and charities, etc.) and not from friends or family members. If your family will pay your tuition fees, you or your family must pay the deposit.

We can waive the deposit requirement for students from the USA who will receive loans from Federal Student Aid, providing the full cost of your tuition fees is covered by the loan.

CAS deposits will be automatically waived once your US Federal Student Aid Loan has been certified. If you have any queries about the US Federal Student Aid process, you can email: federal-aid@nottingham.ac.uk

If you have been awarded a full tuition fee scholarship (100% of your tuition fees) by the University of Nottingham, we will waive the requirement for a tuition fee deposit. You must confirm acceptance of your scholarship if you have not already done so, but you do not need to provide further confirmation of your scholarship as we will have a record of your scholarship offer and will waive your deposit.

If you have been awarded a partial scholarship (less than 100% of your tuition fees), you are still required to pay the deposit or to provide a sponsorship letter from a recognised sponsor confirming funding of the remaining fees.

If you have any queries about your scholarship, please contact our Scholarships Team on:scholarship-assistant@nottingham.ac.uk

As long as 100% of your tuition fees will be covered by recognised funding bodies – including the University of Nottingham, one or more recognised sponsors, or US Federal Student Aid – we will be happy to waive your tuition fee deposit.

This is common for students who have been awarded a partial scholarship from the University (e.g. 50% of tuition fees) and receive funding from a sponsor for their remaining tuition fees, or whose fees are jointly funded by two sponsors.

Yes, the deadline to request a deferral from the Admissions team is one calendar month from the start date of the course.

Yes. If you have requested permission to defer your offer (whether conditional or unconditional) from Nottingham and have not already paid a CAS deposit, you will be required to do so. You need to have requested your deferral and paid the £2000 deposit no later than one calendar month after the original start date of the course.

If you have already paid a CAS deposit of at least £2,000 you will not need to pay any further deposit when deferring.

Paying the CAS deposit shows a firm commitment to attend Nottingham. The deposit will be held by the University as an advance payment against your tuition fee account for the year the course is expected to start and you will not be required to pay any further deposit to receive a CAS.

If you are unable to meet the conditions of your offer or do not attend for reasons which are outside of your control, we will refund your tuition fee deposit payment minus a £100 administration fee.

Yes, if you wish to defer your offer. Although we ask applicants who are planning to attend a course this year not to pay their deposit until their offer is unconditional, students who wish to defer their offer must pay a deposit to secure their offer for the following academic year, whether their offer status is conditional or unconditional.

If you are unable to meet the conditions of your offer or do not attend in the next academic year for any other reason, we can refund your tuition fee deposit payment minus a £100 administration fee.

Please follow the link to Paying the University. Alternatively, please email the Visa and Immigration team.