UK Visa Maintenance Funds: How Much You Must Show and How to Prove It

Key Takeaways

• Maintenance funds are money you must have available to support yourself when you arrive or extend in the UK. They are separate from the visa fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, and you never pay them to anyone. You only prove you hold them.
• Appendix Finance sets no amount. It governs how funds are held and evidenced, while the amounts sit in each route's own appendix. That is why a Skilled Worker and a Student are given completely different figures.
• On the sponsored and endorsed work routes the figure is £1,270 for the main applicant, plus £285 for a partner, £315 for the first child and £200 for each additional child.
• The money must sit in the account for 28 consecutive days, and day 28 must fall within the 31 days before the date of application. The balance must not drop below the required amount on any day in that window.
• Students must show course fees plus £1,529 a month for a course in London or £1,171 outside London, capped at nine months. Those figures rise to £1,570 and £1,203 for applications made on or after 30 November 2026 under Statement of Changes HC 584.
• You do not need to show funds at all if you have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or more on the date of application, which removes the requirement from most extension applications.
• An A-rated sponsor can certify maintenance on the Certificate of Sponsorship instead, covering at least £1,270 to the end of your first month of employment. UK Expansion Worker is the exception, with no certification option.
• Money in shares, bonds, pension pots you cannot draw on, credit balances and overdraft facilities does not count, however large the sum.
• Maintenance refusals are evidential, not financial. Applicants usually had the money and proved it in a way the Rules do not accept.
• If you want your funds and evidence checked before you file, our Skilled Worker visa service reviews the financial picture in one sitting.

Introduction

Most people who fail the maintenance requirement had the money. They were refused because the balance dipped for one day, the statement was printed a week too early, or the savings sat in an account they could not empty that afternoon. The Home Office is not testing whether you are wealthy. It is testing whether a specific sum sat in a specific type of account for a specific run of days, and whether you can prove that on paper.

This guide settles how much you need, route by route, with dependant figures beside the main applicant figures, and how to prove it in a way that survives a caseworker's check.

One dated change needs flagging, and it is confirmed rather than proposed. Statement of Changes HC 584, laid before Parliament on 3 September 2026, raises the Student route monthly figures from 30 November 2026, and applications made before that date are decided under the Rules in force on 29 November 2026. Everything else here reflects the Rules as they stand, checked against GOV.UK on 4 September 2026.

This guide does not cover the family route. If you are applying as a partner under Appendix FM, your test is the minimum income requirement, not maintenance funds, and it works on an entirely different basis. We cover that in our guide to the £29,000 family visa income requirement.

What Appendix Finance Actually Does

Appendix Finance is one of the shortest appendices in the Immigration Rules and one of the most misread. It contains almost no money. It contains the method: where funds may be held, in whose name, for how long, in what currency, and what proves it.

The amounts live elsewhere. Appendix Skilled Worker sets £1,270. Appendix Student sets a monthly rate multiplied by the length of the course. Appendix Youth Mobility Scheme sets £2,530. Appendix Finance then tells all of them how those funds must behave. That split explains most of the confusion online: an article quoting one number is describing one route, because there is no universal figure.

It applies across roughly thirty routes, including Skilled Worker, Student, Child Student, the Global Business Mobility routes, High Potential Individual, Innovator Founder, Scale-up, Start-up, International Sportsperson, Minister of Religion, Temporary Work, UK Ancestry, Youth Mobility Scheme and the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route. It does not apply to Appendix FM, and it does not govern visa fees or the Immigration Health Surcharge. For the cost of the application itself, our IHS and Visa Fee Calculator gives you the payable total.

How Much You Must Show, Route by Route

Two entries deserve a note. The Graduate route carries no financial requirement at all, which surprises people coming off a Student visa. UK Ancestry uses the older style of test: the decision maker must be satisfied you can adequately maintain and accommodate yourself and any dependants without recourse to public funds, and under UKA 5.3 a credible promise of third-party support can be taken into account. That flexibility does not exist on the points-based routes.

The figure changes with the route rather than with you, so someone switching from a Graduate visa into sponsored work picks up the £1,270 requirement on the day they switch unless an exemption applies. We walk through that move in our guide to switching to a Skilled Worker visa.

Dependant amounts on the work and business routes

These figures are the same across Skilled Worker, the Global Business Mobility routes, Scale-up, Start-up, Innovator Founder, High Potential Individual and International Sportsperson. They are additional to the main applicant's £1,270 and to each other.

A Skilled Worker bringing a partner and two children needs £2,070 in total. The funds can be held collectively rather than in separate accounts, but under SW 33.5 money relied on for a dependant cannot be the same money relied on for the main applicant or another dependant. Counting the same £1,270 twice is a refusal.

Student dependants work differently. Under ST 33.2 and ST 37.2 each dependent partner and each dependent child needs £845 a month in London or £680 outside London, for up to nine months. HC 584 did not change those figures, so they stay the same after 30 November 2026. Our dependant visa service covers family members applying alongside a main applicant.

The 28-Day Rule, and How It Is Actually Counted

This is where applications are lost. The rule has two halves and both must be satisfied at once.

FIN 7.1 requires the most recently dated piece of financial evidence to be dated within the 31 days before the date of application. FIN 7.2 says the length of time the funds were held is calculated by counting back from the date of the closing balance on that evidence.

Together, that anchors the 28-day window to your statement, not to your application. A statement with a closing balance of 20 August 2026 gives a window running from 24 July to 20 August. Apply on 15 September and the statement is 26 days old, inside the limit. Apply on 25 September and it is 36 days old, and the application fails even though the money never moved.

Three consequences follow. The balance must not dip at any point, because this is not an average and not a start-and-end check: one day at £1,269 when £1,270 is required breaks the run and the count restarts. Direct debits and standing orders landing mid-window are the usual culprits, so pause them or hold a margin above the minimum. Pending transactions can move the closing balance, and where your available and ledger balances differ the caseworker works from the statement. And the clock runs from the evidence, not from the day you started saving, so money held for two years still fails if the statement is 40 days old when you apply.

Which Accounts Count, and Which Do Not

FIN 8.1 is broad. Funds may sit in any form of personal bank or building society account, including current, deposit, savings, pension and investment accounts, provided the account allows the funds to be accessed immediately. That last clause is the whole test. FIN 8.2 excludes anything from which funds cannot be withdrawn immediately, naming shares, bonds, credit cards and pensions. FIN 3.1 excludes overdraft facilities outright, so an agreed overdraft of £2,000 behind a balance of £100 counts as £100.

FIN 2.1 adds a filter on the institution. Funds are not considered where the decision maker cannot make satisfactory verification checks, where the institution is not regulated by the appropriate body in the country it operates in, or where it does not use electronic record keeping. Some smaller local institutions and some digital-only providers fall foul of this.

FIN 4.1 adds a condition that is easy to overlook. Funds earned or acquired while you were in the UK must have been earned lawfully and while you had permission. Money earned in breach of your visa conditions does not become acceptable because it sits in a regulated account. Anyone who has taken extra work should check the position first, and our supplementary work checker confirms whether a second job was permitted.

Whose Name the Money Can Be In

FIN 5.1 is narrower than most people assume. The account can be in your own name, alone or as a joint holder, or in your partner's name where you are applying together. For Student, Child Student and Short-term Student applicants and their dependants it can be in a parent's or legal guardian's name, and for Child Students also a close relative or foster carer. Where a parent holds the funds, they must give written consent to their use.

FIN 5.2 requires whoever holds the account to have control of the funds, and FIN 6.1 closes the obvious workaround: promises of future third-party support are not accepted as evidence, except where the route itself allows it. A letter from an uncle offering to fund you is not evidence, because money in your uncle's account is not your money. A work-route applicant therefore cannot use a parent's savings. If money is being gifted, it must be transferred and then held for the full 28 days in an account that meets FIN 5.1.

When You Do Not Need to Show Funds at All

Four exemptions do most of the work here, and the first is by far the most valuable.

Twelve months in the UK. If you are applying for permission to stay and have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or more on the date of application, you meet the financial requirement automatically. The wording appears in near-identical form at SW 15.1, ST 12.1, HPI 7.1, INNF 12.1, SU 8.1 and SCU 10.1, and applies to dependants on the same terms. Most extension applications fall inside it. Our guide to the Skilled Worker visa extension covers what you do still need.

Sponsor certification. On the sponsored routes an A-rated sponsor can confirm on the Certificate of Sponsorship that they will maintain and accommodate you to the end of your first month of employment, to at least £1,270, and the same option extends to dependants. Two limits matter. A sponsor on a B-rating action plan cannot certify. And it covers the first month only, as a genuine undertaking rather than a formality. One route has no certification option at all: under UKX 10.2 a UK Expansion Worker must show the funds personally.

Official financial sponsorship or a student loan. Under FIN 8.3 and FIN 8.4, Student and Short-term Student applicants can rely on an official financial sponsor, meaning His Majesty's Government, their own national government, the British Council, or an international organisation, company, university or independent school. They can also rely on a student loan. Where either applies there is no balance to hold, so the 28-day rule does not bite.

The differential evidence requirement. Under ST 22.1, nationals of around sixty listed countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, the United States and the EU member states, need not submit financial evidence with a Student application made from their home country or from inside the UK. The requirement still applies, a caseworker can ask for the evidence at any point, and if it cannot be produced the application is refused. This is a paperwork concession, not an exemption. Student Union sabbatical officers are separately exempt under ST 12.2.

The Student Route: What Changes on 30 November 2026

The Student route is the only part of this subject with a confirmed change in the diary. It comes from Statement of Changes HC 584, laid on 3 September 2026, and matches the maintenance loans available to home students for the 2026 to 2027 academic year. We covered the statement in full in our HC 584 explainer.

The transitional rule is explicit in the statement: an application made before 30 November 2026 is decided under the Rules in force on 29 November 2026. The date that counts is the date of application, not the date of decision, so an application filed on 28 November and decided in January is assessed on the lower figures.

Four mechanics sit around those numbers. Living costs run for the length of the course, capped at nine months, and a part month rounds up, so a course of six months and two days needs seven months of funds. Outstanding course fees are added on top, and fees already paid are deducted, confirmed under ST 12.5 either on your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies or by a receipt from your sponsor. A deposit for accommodation arranged by your student sponsor can be offset under ST 12.4, up to £1,529 today and £1,570 from 30 November 2026, but a deposit paid to a private landlord does not qualify. And under ST 12.7, if your funds drop substantially before the decision, the caseworker must be satisfied the money went on outstanding fees, an accommodation deposit or other genuine costs.

Our student visa service handles the evidence pack, and our graduate visa service covers the route after it, which has no maintenance requirement at all.

What Documents to Submit

The Home Office publishes separate evidence pages for sponsored or endorsed work routes and for Student and Child Student applicants. The accepted documents are broadly the same.

Electronic statements downloaded from online banking are acceptable and need no bank stamp, which still trips up applicants relying on older advice.

Currency is handled by FIN 1. Foreign currency is converted at the spot rate shown on oanda.com for the date of the application. Where OANDA publishes no rate, FIN 1.2 and FIN 1.3 apply the monthly FCDO Consular Exchange Rate instead, currently covering the Syrian Pound, the Mongolian Tugrik and the Iranian Rial. Because conversion happens on the day you apply, a currency that has weakened since you last checked can leave you short, so a buffer of ten per cent above the minimum is sensible for anyone banking outside sterling.

Why Maintenance Applications Get Refused

Almost every maintenance refusal falls into one of seven mistakes, and none is really about money. The balance dipped below the required amount on one day inside the window, breaking FIN 7.2. The statement was dated more than 31 days before submission, breaking FIN 7.1. The funds sat in a notice account, a fixed-term deposit or an instrument excluded by FIN 8.2. The account was in the wrong person's name, such as a parent's account on a work route, contrary to FIN 5.1. The institution could not be verified or was not appropriately regulated, so the money was disregarded under FIN 2.1. The currency conversion left the applicant just short on the day. Or dependant funds were counted twice against the main applicant's £1,270, contrary to SW 33.5 and its equivalents.

A maintenance refusal generally attracts administrative review rather than a right of appeal, and administrative review only corrects a caseworking error. It will not help if the money was not held in the form the Rules require. The realistic remedy is a fresh application, which means another fee and another Immigration Health Surcharge.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

We review maintenance evidence before it goes near a submission: the 28-day run checked day by day rather than at the ends, the account type checked against FIN 8.1, the statement date checked against the 31-day limit, the conversion run on the day you intend to apply, and the 12-month exemption and your sponsor's rating both confirmed. Where a sponsor is certifying, we check the Certificate of Sponsorship wording, because a certification that does not say what the Rules require is worse than none.

Our Skilled Worker visa service covers the full application including the financial evidence, our dependent visa service handles partners and children applying alongside, and our student visa service covers course fees, the accommodation offset and the differential evidence position.

Conclusion

Maintenance funds are a documentation test wearing the costume of a financial one. The amounts are modest by the standards of the rest of the immigration system: £1,270 on most work routes, £2,530 on the Youth Mobility Scheme, and a monthly rate on the Student route. What defeats applicants is the machinery around those amounts, and in particular the 28-day run counted backwards from a statement that must itself be less than 31 days old.

Three checks prevent most problems. Confirm whether you are exempt, because 12 months in the UK with permission removes the requirement entirely. Look at the account daily rather than at the two ends, since one dip resets the count. And apply promptly once you have the statement, because the 31-day window starts the moment the closing balance is struck.

If you are a Student applying close to the end of November 2026, the date of your application decides which set of figures applies. Filing on 29 November and filing on 30 November are two different applications with two different thresholds, and the date is under your control.

Glossary