UK eye test prices: what each chain actually charges
No UK optician sells “an eye test”. They sell tiers, and they price the same appointment differently depending on whether you qualify for an NHS-funded sight test. A private test without a retinal scan runs £25–£39; with a scan, £30–£99. If you qualify for NHS help, the upgrade to a scan-included test costs £6–£49 instead.
The number nobody advertises: what the “free” NHS test costs to upgrade
If you qualify for an NHS-funded sight test, the examination is free everywhere. What differs is the fee to upgrade it to the tier that includes a retinal scan — the tier most chains steer customers towards. That upgrade is £6 at Vision Express and £49 at Bayfields Opticians, for an appointment of the same description. Vision Express also prices its upgrade by nation, so the figure changes if you book in Scotland rather than England.
Each upgrade fee below links to the page it was read from.
Full private fees — if you do not qualify for NHS help
What an adult who does not qualify for an NHS-funded sight test pays. Sorted by operator; a chain with several tiers appears once per tier, because they are different products.
| Optician | What they call it | Retinal scan | Published fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayfields Opticians read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test | Included | £64 |
| Bayfields Opticians read from fee page | Ultimate Eye Test | Included | £77 |
| Boots Opticians checked by hand Jun 2026 | Private eye test | Not included | £29.95 |
| Leightons read from fee page | Leightons private eye test | Not included | £39 |
| Leightons read from fee page | Leightons enhanced eye test | Included | £69 |
| Leightons read from fee page | Leightons ultimate eye exam | Included | £99 |
| Optical Express read from fee page | Essential Eye Test | Not included | £25 |
| Optical Express read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test | Included | £50 |
| Specsavers checked by hand Jun 2026 | Standard eye test | Not included | £25 |
| Specsavers checked by hand Jun 2026 | Standard eye test plus OCT retinal scan | Included | £35 |
| Vision Express read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test | Included | £30 |
NHS-eligible upgrade fees — a different product, never averaged with the above
These are not discounts on the private fee. They are what you pay on top of an NHS-funded sight test to add the scans, and they are published separately by each chain. Pooling them with the private fees would produce a range that describes nobody.
| Optician | What they call it | Retinal scan | Published fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayfields Opticians read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test — NHS clients | Included | £39 |
| Bayfields Opticians read from fee page | Ultimate Eye Test — NHS clients | Included | £49 |
| Optical Express read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test — NHS upgrade | Included | £25 |
| Vision Express read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test — NHS upgrade (England, Wales, NI) | Included | £6 |
| Vision Express read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test — NHS upgrade (Scotland) | Included | £10 |
Home eye tests — a visit, not a tier
A domiciliary test is carried out at home for people who cannot get to a store unaccompanied. It is priced well above any in-store appointment, so it is listed separately rather than allowed to set the top of the ranges above. It is free on the NHS for those who are eligible and housebound.
| Optician | What they call it | Retinal scan | Published fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specsavers checked by hand Jun 2026 | Home eye test | Not included | £60 |
Child fees, where published separately
Under-16s qualify for a free NHS sight test throughout the UK. These are the published fees for the paid upgrades. Only some chains publish a child price at all.
| Optician | What they call it | Retinal scan | Published fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayfields Opticians read from fee page | Advanced Eye Test — children | Included | £19.50 |
| Bayfields Opticians read from fee page | Ultimate Eye Test — children | Included | £24.50 |
Who qualifies for a free NHS sight test
- Under 16, or under 19 and in full-time education
- Aged 60 or over
- Diagnosed with diabetes or glaucoma
- Aged 40+ with a parent, sibling or child who has glaucoma
- Registered blind or partially sighted
- Receiving Income Support or Pension Credit Guarantee Credit
- Receiving Universal Credit within the earnings threshold
- Holding a valid HC2 or HC3 certificate
In Scotland, NHS sight tests are free for every resident regardless of age or income — which is why the Scottish upgrade fee, not the test fee, is the figure that matters there.
What this page does not cover, and why
6 UK optical chains tracked, all publishing a fee schedule — 4 of them readable by machine, the rest checked by hand because they block automated reads. The rest of the UK market is independent practices, and almost none of them publish a fee — the GOC register lists every registered practice in the country but holds no price field. There is no honest way to fill that gap, so it is left open rather than estimated.
Two chains — Specsavers and Boots — refuse automated reads of their fee pages (HTTP 403 to an identified bot and to a headless browser alike, although their robots.txt permits the path). Their figures are marked checked by hand above, with the date, rather than being presented as a fresh read. 15 of the 19 figures on this page were read from the fee page directly.
Fees are listed per operator, never per branch. A chain publishes one schedule that applies across its stores, so recording it once per store would turn a single published price into hundreds of apparently independent observations.
Related eyecare comparisons
Sources & further reading
- Bayfields Opticians — published eye-test fees — Read directly from the operator’s fee page.
- Boots Opticians — published eye-test fees — Checked by hand on 2026-06-01 — the page refuses automated reads.
- Leightons — published eye-test fees — Read directly from the operator’s fee page.
- Optical Express — published eye-test fees — Read directly from the operator’s fee page.
- Specsavers — published eye-test fees — Checked by hand on 2026-06-01 — the page refuses automated reads.
- Vision Express — published eye-test fees — Read directly from the operator’s fee page.
- NHS — Free NHS eye tests and optical vouchers — Who qualifies for an NHS-funded sight test.
- GOC — checking the registers — Registration status of UK optical practices. The register holds no price data.
How these prices are collected
Each figure is read from the operator's own published fee page, one row per tier, and carries the URL it came from. Where a chain blocks automated reads, the figure is checked by a person and dated as such. Prices are never averaged across tiers, across operators, or across the private and NHS-eligible audiences. Nothing on this page is estimated, modelled or filled in. Read our methodology →