Student Visa Work-Hours Checker: How Many Hours Can You Really Work?

The commonest way Student visa holders break their work limit is not greed — it is arithmetic done on the wrong week. Your employer plans and pays you by their week, which might run Sunday to Saturday, or sit inside a fortnightly pay cycle. The Home Office counts something different: a fixed week running Monday to Sunday, with your cap applied to every one of those weeks separately and no averaging across them. A rota that looks legal on your payslip can be a breach once the hours are regrouped the Home Office way — shifts that straddle a weekend are where it usually happens. This checker does the regrouping for you: enter your shifts, tell it which weeks were official vacations, and it totals your hours Monday to Sunday, applies your term-time cap and flags any week you have gone over. Nothing you type here is stored or sent anywhere; the calculation runs entirely in your browser.

The rules this checker applies

The limits come from the Student route rules as published by the Home Office and explained by UKCISA, the UK Council for International Student Affairs. Degree-level study: a maximum of 20 hours a week in term time. Below degree level (for example a foundation or further-education course): 10 hours a week in term time. Some visas allow no work at all — the figure printed on your visa or eVisa decision is the one that governs you, and this checker lets you test against it, including a stricter limit your own university sets for campus jobs. A "week" is the seven days from Monday to Sunday. The cap applies to each week on its own — working 10 hours in one week does not buy you 30 the next. Paid and unpaid work both count, including voluntary work, and the total is across all your employers combined: neither of your managers can see the other's rota, which is why the record-keeping — and the checking — is yours. In your course's official vacation periods you may work full-time, and the same applies after your course end date while your visa is still valid. Everything else is term time, including reading weeks, revision periods and — read the warning in the checker carefully — the Master's dissertation period.

The traps that catch students out

The pay-week trap. A supermarket rota running Sunday to Saturday, or a fortnightly pay cycle of 38 hours, tells you nothing about your visa position. Suppose you work 15 hours in the second half of one rota week and 15 in the first half of the next: each pay week shows 15, but the Home Office week in the middle — Monday to Sunday — may hold 25. This checker exists precisely to catch that shape of mistake, so enter shifts by their real dates, not by pay periods. The two-jobs trap. Twelve hours in a café plus nine tutoring is 21 hours, and both employers will honestly confirm you stayed under their own rota's limit. The cap is on you, not on them, and it is the combined figure that counts. The volunteering trap. Unpaid work counts the same as paid work (genuine one-off volunteering for a charity is treated differently from an unpaid job — if your "volunteering" looks like a regular role, count it here and check with your university). The quiet-campus trap. Reading weeks, revision leave and the Master's dissertation summer all feel like holidays; under the rules they are term time. And the averaging trap: there is none. A quiet week never refunds a busy one — each Monday-to-Sunday week stands or falls on its own.

Self-check only — this is not immigration advice

This checker is an arithmetic aid built from the published Home Office and UKCISA rules; it is not immigration advice, it cannot see your visa, and it does not replace the term and vacation dates your university — your sponsor — publishes for your specific course, which are the dates that govern you. Working beyond your permitted hours is a breach of your visa conditions and can have serious consequences, including for later applications such as the Graduate route. If this checker flags a week, or if anything about your situation is unusual — a placement, a research degree with different term patterns, a change of course level — talk to your university's international student team or read UKCISA's student work guidance before you work another shift. Nothing on this page is stored, and no result here is a guarantee of anything.

When work is capped but your deadlines are not

Here is the squeeze this checker cannot solve: your hours at work are capped at 20 a week, but your coursework hours are not — and the weeks your employer wants you most (December retail, summer hospitality) are often the weeks your deadlines land. If a flagged week is really a timetabling problem with your studies underneath, our specialists can take the assignment side off your plate with model work written to your brief: see our prices (from £20 per 1,000 words) or message us on WhatsApp for a free quote. Still sorting out the visa side of student life? The UK Student Visa Funds Calculator works out the money you must show, our guide explains the 28-day rule in plain English, and our page on assignment help for international students covers the academic conventions nobody explains when you arrive.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours can I work on a UK Student visa? In term time, up to 20 hours a week if you study at degree level or above, or 10 hours a week below degree level — measured Monday to Sunday, per week, with no averaging. In your course's official vacations, and after your course ends while your visa lasts, you can normally work full-time. The condition printed on your own visa or eVisa is the figure that governs you.

My employer counts my hours Sunday to Saturday. Does their week count? No. For your visa, a week is the Home Office week, Monday to Sunday, whatever your employer's rota or pay cycle says. Hours that are legal in two different pay weeks can still breach your cap inside one Monday–Sunday week — which is exactly what this checker regroups and tests.

Does voluntary or unpaid work count towards the limit? Yes. Paid and unpaid work both count towards the same weekly total, across every employer and organisation combined. Enter voluntary shifts in this checker alongside your paid ones; they are summed in exactly the same way.

Can I work full-time over the summer on a Master's? Only during your university's official vacation periods. On a typical one-year Master's the summer is your dissertation period, which counts as term time — the 20-hour cap still applies while you write. Full-time work opens up after your official course end date, while your visa remains valid.

I have two part-time jobs. Whose limit applies? Yours. The cap is a single total across all your jobs: 12 hours with one employer and 9 with another is 21 hours in the week, and a breach at a 20-hour cap. Neither employer sees the other's hours, so the combined record is your responsibility — enter every job's shifts here.

What happens if I go over my hours? You would be working in breach of your visa conditions, which is a serious matter: it can affect your current stay and future UK applications, and your university has duties as your sponsor if it finds out. If you think it has already happened, get advice before doing anything else — from your university's international student team or UKCISA. This checker helps you catch the risk in advance; it is not advice and cannot undo a breach.

Other free tools

Planning the study side of the same week? The deadline planner works backwards from your submission dates to a realistic writing schedule, and the price calculator shows what support with an assignment would cost at each deadline — from the same £20 per 1,000 words standard rate used across the site.