How much money do I need to bring my family to the UK? Understanding the new financial requirements for UK partner visas

If you are settled in the UK and you have a non-British partner or child, you might wonder what your financial circumstances must be to bring them to the UK or to renew their visa, particularly since the increase in the income thresholds has recently been discussed in the media.  

The rules about this are contained in Appendix FM and Appendix FM-SE, which are complex pieces of legislation. However, we are here to explain the financial element of family visas and how to meet the rules.  Whether you have a spouse, civil partner, fiancé or a child in mind, we have the answers for you.

On 11 April 2024, the minimum income threshold to sponsor a family member increased from £18,600 to £29,000. This means that after 11 April 2024, you must have a minimum income of £29,000 per year to sponsor someone to come to the UK or stay here, and you must usually have held this same source of income for the last six months. Under this new rule, the income required remains the same, regardless of how many children you are supporting. These changes do not impact family members already in the UK using this visa route, we will explore this later in this article. 

You can meet this minimum income requirement through your employment, self-employment, as a business owner or director, through pensions or investments, or through savings.  Your partner’s employment or self-employment income can also be taken into account, if they happen to already be in the UK with permission to work.

You cannot include loans or most state benefits, such as Universal Credit or Child Benefit.  However, if you receive a benefit related to a disability you may be able to count this type of benefit and a different principle, referred to as ‘adequate maintenance’ will apply.

You can combine certain employment income with non-employment income to meet the requirements. 

If you want to meet the requirement through savings alone, it is not enough just to have £29,000.  You will need a total of £88,500.  This is because your savings are divided by a factor of 2.5 in order to be considered as the equivalent yearly income (as the visa will be awarded for 2.5 years) and on top of that, you are expected to hold an additional £16,000 as a ‘cushion’ amount. In other words, to calculate how much your savings can contribute to your yearly income, you need to remove £16,000 and then divide by 2.5.  For example, if you have £25,000 in savings, the calculation would be (£25,000 – £16,000) ÷ 2.5 = £3,600.  Therefore, you would be able to contribute £3,600 to your annual income from savings, if you or your partner had held them for six months prior to making the application.

For all these different sources of income, there are very specific forms of proof which need to be used, and in some cases, you will need additional proof, for instance if you are working for a family business.  The types of proof are too numerous to list here but they are contained in Appendix FM-SE. 

If you have made an application but want an expert solicitor to review it before submitting, visit our Application checking service.

If your family member has already been on the 5-year route to settlement since before 11 April 2024 and they are applying on the basis of the same partner or parent, no problem.  You will just need to continue to meet the old annual income requirement of £18,600 as you did in your previous application. (If you have children applying also who are not British or settled in the UK, this will be higher depending on the number of children applying).  In fact, even if you made the application just before 11 April 2024, as long as this leads to a successful grant of leave on the 5-year route, you can continue to benefit from the previous income requirement of £18,600 per year.

However, if your family member is on the 10-year route and now wants to switch to the 5-year route, as explored by Alex young here, you will need to meet the new requirement of £29,000 per year. 

It depends if the applying family member is already in the UK.  If not, and you can show that a refusal would breach your right to a family life to such an extent that it would have ‘unjustifiably harsh consequences’ on you, the applicant, or a connected child. If you can show this, then you may be able to use some alternative sources of income to meet the requirement. This could include money from a family member, potential earnings in the UK or other reliable sources of income.  

If you have no viable alternative sources of income to meet the requirement, then it may be waived altogether.  However, ‘unjustifiably harsh consequences’ is a high bar; its meaning is ambiguous and has also been the subject of legal debate.  Essentially, it means that the difficulties faced by the person involved would be so severe as to outweigh the state’s interest in maintaining effective immigration control. For example, if you are gay and your spouse is your only living relative and is from Saudi Arabia, where gay marriage is illegal, it could be considered unjustifiably harsh to refuse their entry clearance application, even if you cannot meet the minimum income requirement.

If the person applying is already in the UK, the financial requirement can be waived if, as partners, you can show that there are ‘insurmountable obstacles’ to your family life continuing outside the UK which cannot be overcome or would create very serious hardship.  Similarly to ‘unjustifiably harsh consequences’, the term ‘insurmountable obstacles’ is ambiguous but could include, for example, requiring someone who is a refugee to return to the country which they had run away from.

Alternatively, if the person applying is a parent of a child who lives in the UK and is either British or has lived here for the last seven years, the financial requirement can be waived where they can show that it would not be reasonable for the child to leave the UK.  For example, it could be considered unreasonable for a child to leave the UK if they are settled at school here, have never visited their parent’s country, do not speak the language there and have special educational needs which cannot be catered for in that country.

Applications relying on these exceptional circumstances are complex, but they can be successful.  We urge you to seek legal advice if you fall into this category and cannot meet the minimum income requirements.

Unfortunately, yes. Later in 2024 (the date is undecided), the current government plans to increase the minimum requirement to £34,500 per year, and in 2025 it is planned to go up to £38,700.

However, with a general election rumoured to be happening in 2024, and certainly no later than 28 January 2025, anything could happen. Watch this space.