Will the £29,000 Family Visa Income Requirement Be Lowered?

Key Takeaways

• The minimum income requirement for a UK partner or spouse visa is still £29,000 a year as at 1 September 2026. It has not moved since 11 April 2024, and nothing in Appendix FM changed during 2026.
• If you are meeting the requirement from cash savings alone, the figure is £88,500, held for at least six months. That comes from the formula in the Immigration Rules: £16,000, plus 2.5 times the £29,000 of income you are not showing.
• A lower threshold of £18,600 survives for one group only: people who first applied as a fiancé, fiancée, proposed civil partner or partner before 11 April 2024, were granted permission, and are applying to stay with the same partner.
• The additional amount for children survives only inside that transitional group, at £3,800 for the first child and £2,400 for each further child, capped at £29,000. Anyone new to the route since 11 April 2024 needs £29,000 whether they have no children or four.
• The Migration Advisory Committee reported on 10 June 2025 and deliberately declined to name a replacement figure. It set out a defensible range of £21,000 to £28,000, with several measures clustering between £23,000 and £25,000, and advised against reintroducing an amount for children.
• That advice is a recommendation, not law. The government has not accepted it, rejected it or responded to it. The £29,000 is the only part of this subject that is confirmed law.
• The immigration white paper of 12 May 2025 promised a new family policy “before the end of this year”. That deadline passed eight months ago and no family policy has been published.
• Home Office statistics published on 27 August 2026 show 38,902 partner visas granted in the year ending June 2026, down 8 per cent, with grants having fallen after the higher threshold came in and then levelled off.
• If the threshold moved, the precedent from 11 April 2024 is that applications are decided under the rules in force on the day they were made, and the existing cohort was protected rather than swept up.
• If you are deciding whether to apply now or wait, our UK spouse visa service can assess your income against the current rules and tell you which evidence category you fall into before you commit the fee.

Introduction

If you are sponsoring a partner for a UK family visa, one number decides almost everything. It is £29,000, it has been the minimum income requirement since 11 April 2024, and for well over a year there has been a widespread expectation that it is about to come down. That expectation is not baseless. The government's own advisers told it, in June 2025, that £29,000 sits above the level the evidence supports. What has not happened is a decision.

This post settles where the rule actually stands on 1 September 2026. The short answer is that £29,000 is still the law, nothing in the Immigration Rules touched the family financial requirement during 2026, and no minister has announced a replacement figure or a date. The lower numbers you may have seen quoted, £23,000 or £24,000 or £25,000, all trace back to a single advisory report that the government has not responded to.

We have separated confirmed law from proposal throughout, and said which is which in the text rather than leaving you to infer it. That distinction matters more here than on almost any other topic, because a couple kept apart by a threshold has every reason to believe the more hopeful version.

You will also find what would happen to an application you have already submitted if the threshold did move, based on how the Home Office handled the last change, and a practical way to decide whether to apply now or wait.

The rule as it stands on 1 September 2026

Everything in this section is confirmed law. Each figure sits in Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules, which was last updated on 3 August 2026, and in the Home Office financial requirement guidance for caseworkers, version 13.0 of 11 November 2025.

The £29,000 threshold and who it catches

The requirement is a gross annual income of at least £29,000, before tax and National Insurance. It applies at entry clearance, at the first grant of permission to stay, and at the two and a half year extension. It is tested on the sponsor's income, on the applicant's income where the applicant is already in the UK with permission to work, or on the two combined.

It applies to spouses, civil partners, unmarried partners and fiancés alike. The route does not change the number. If you are unsure which one you are applying under, our partner and family visa service and our unmarried partner visa service set out the relationship evidence each needs.

The Home Office does not simply average your income over a year. It tests it through defined categories, and your evidence has to fit one of them. Category A covers six months or more with your current employer, Category B less than six months or variable income, Category C non-employment income such as rent or dividends, Category D cash savings, Category E pensions, and Categories F and G self-employment and company directors. A salary that plainly exceeds £29,000 can still fail if it is evidenced under the wrong category, and that is the most common reason a financially comfortable couple is refused.

Meeting the requirement from cash savings, and where £88,500 comes from

The Rules do not name £88,500 anywhere. They set out a formula, and £88,500 is what the formula produces. You need £16,000, which is disregarded entirely, plus 2.5 times the shortfall between your income and the threshold. If your income is nil, the shortfall is the whole £29,000, so you need £16,000 plus £72,500, which is £88,500.

The money has to be held by you, your partner, or the two of you jointly for at least the six months before the date of application, and it has to be under your control and available in cash. The multiplier of 2.5 exists because the first grant plus the extension covers roughly two and a half years.

Two points are routinely missed. The multiplier drops away at the settlement stage, so the savings figure at indefinite leave to remain is far lower. And savings can be combined with income, which is how most people who use this route actually clear the threshold. Very few hold £88,500 in cash. A great many hold £30,000 and earn £22,000.

The £18,600 transitional level, and exactly who keeps it

The £18,600 figure has not been abolished. It survives for a defined group, and the definition is narrow. You keep it if you made your first application as a fiancé, fiancée, proposed civil partner or partner before 11 April 2024, you were granted permission on that application, and you are now applying for further permission to stay with the same partner.

Change partner and you lose it. Break the chain of permission and you lose it. Apply for the first time on or after 11 April 2024 and you never had it. Check this carefully before assuming which number applies to you, because the gap between the two figures is the gap between an application that succeeds and one that does not.

Children: the element that survived, and the one that did not

Before 11 April 2024, the financial requirement rose with each child who was not British or settled: £3,800 for the first, £2,400 for each further child. That structure still exists, but only inside the transitional £18,600 arrangement, and it is capped. Once the total the family would need exceeds £29,000, the requirement stops there and £29,000 is all that has to be evidenced.

For anyone new to the route on or after 11 April 2024 there is no child element at all. The Home Office guidance is explicit that the £29,000 does not vary with the number of dependent children. A couple sponsoring three children needs exactly what a couple with none needs, which is one of the few respects in which the April 2024 change made the route easier. If you are bringing children, our dependent visa service covers what each child has to show in their own right.

The two lawful routes round the threshold that already exist

Neither is a loophole. Both are in the Rules, and both are worth knowing about before you conclude that £29,000 puts the route out of reach.

The first is the exempt benefits route. If the sponsor receives one of a defined list of disability or carer's benefits, including Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Carer's Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Adult Disability Payment and several Armed Forces payments, the income threshold does not apply at all. What applies instead is the adequate maintenance test, which asks whether the family can house and support itself without additional recourse to public funds. The full list is on the GOV.UK financial requirement page. If public funds are a live issue in your case, our post on the no recourse to public funds condition explains what that restriction actually stops you claiming.

The second is the exceptional circumstances route under paragraphs GEN.3.1 and GEN.3.2 of Appendix FM. GEN.3.1 lets a caseworker take account of other credible and reliable sources of income, financial support or funds where refusal would otherwise breach Article 8. GEN.3.2 goes further, and allows a grant where refusal would produce unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant, a relevant child or another family member. The Home Office guidance on family life and exceptional circumstances, version 29.0 of 5 August 2026, sets out how caseworkers are told to apply both.

The catch is the outcome. A grant under GEN.3.2 puts you on the ten year route to settlement rather than the five year route, which means more applications, more fees and a longer wait. Our comparison of FLR(M) and FLR(FP) explains what living on the ten year route involves.

What the Migration Advisory Committee actually recommended

This section is advice, not law. Nothing in it has been implemented.

On 10 June 2025 the Migration Advisory Committee published its review of the family visa financial requirements, commissioned by the Home Secretary. The terms of reference were different from the 2011 review that produced the original £18,600. In 2011 the question was how to stop families becoming a burden on the state. In 2025 the question was how to balance economic wellbeing against the right to family life.

The most important thing the MAC did was refuse to name a single figure. Its position was that the trade off between family life and fiscal contribution has no objectively correct answer, and that striking the balance is for government rather than its advisers. What it produced instead was a set of reference points.

The MAC also advised against regional variation, while noting that a threshold could be calculated on data excluding London if fairness across the UK were the concern, and it recommended reviewing eligibility for the Parent route so that parents of British children might qualify regardless of relationship status.

Read together, the report is a clear signal that £29,000 is above the range the evidence supports, and an equally clear refusal to tell the government what to replace it with. That combination is exactly why nothing has happened since.

Why no decision has followed

The delay is not a mystery, and it is not a sign that an announcement is imminent. Three things explain it.

First, the MAC handed the decision back. A report recommending a specific number is difficult for a government to ignore. A report recommending a range and saying the choice is political is very easy to leave on a shelf.

Second, the family route was folded into a much larger piece of work. The immigration white paper of 12 May 2025, Restoring Control over the Immigration System, said at paragraph 148 that the government would set out a new family policy “before the end of this year”, covering relationship requirements, English language, and financial requirements extended across other dependant routes. It also said at paragraph 156 that legislation would clarify how Article 8 applies, so that fewer cases are treated as exceptional. The income threshold is now one component of a package rather than a standalone decision, and packages move slowly. Our summary of the white paper's key changes covers the rest of it.

Third, the political direction of travel on settlement has been towards longer qualifying periods and higher requirements. It is difficult to lower a family income threshold in the same season as consulting on a ten year baseline for settlement.

The House of Commons Library briefing on the financial requirement for partner visas, updated on 8 July 2026, records the position plainly: the government has not made any change to the £29,000 threshold in response to the review.

What changed in 2026, and what did not

It is worth being precise about this, because “the rules changed in 2026” is true in general and false on this specific point.

Three statements of changes have taken effect since January 2026: HC 1333, HC 1691 and HC 259. Between them they altered the Skilled Worker route, Appendix Global Talent, Appendix EU, the visitor rules and a long list of other appendices. HC 259, in force from 30 July 2026, did touch Appendix FM, but only to align the duration of leave for partners of people with temporary protection status, to clarify the serious and compelling circumstances test for child relatives under Part 8, and to apply a care requirement to the Appendix FM child route.

None of the 2026 statements of changes altered the minimum income requirement, the cash savings formula, the transitional arrangements or the child element. Anyone telling you the family financial requirement changed this year is describing something else. If you want the fee position rather than the income position, those did move: our guide to the visa fee increases from 8 April 2026 has the current figures, and the IHS and visa fee calculator will price your specific application.

What the latest figures show about who this is affecting

Home Office immigration statistics published on 27 August 2026 give the clearest picture available of what the higher threshold has done to the route.

In the year ending June 2026, 57,590 family related visas were granted, a fall of 19 per cent on the year before. Partner visas, the largest category, accounted for 38,902 of those, down 8 per cent. The Home Office analysis of family route statistics attributes the shape of the trend to the threshold directly: applications and grants spiked between 2023 and early 2024 as couples rushed to apply before 11 April 2024, then fell once the higher figure came in, and have since levelled off.

Two things follow. The rush before a threshold change is real and large, which matters if you are timing an application around a possible announcement. And the levelling off suggests the route has found a new and lower baseline rather than recovering, which is what keeps political pressure on the figure alive.

If the threshold is lowered, what happens to an application you have already made

This is the question we are asked most often, and the honest answer has two halves: what the law says, and what actually happened last time.

The law is that an application is decided under the Immigration Rules in force on the date it is made, unless the statement of changes says otherwise. Statements of changes routinely carry transitional wording specifying which applications the new provisions apply to, and that wording is where the answer will be found when the change comes.

What happened last time is more informative. When the threshold rose on 11 April 2024, the increase applied only to people new to the route. Everyone already in the system kept £18,600, permanently, for as long as they continued applying with the same partner. The Home Office chose protection over disruption, and it has kept that protection in place for more than two years since.

There is no guarantee it would behave the same way on the way down. Protecting people from an increase is generous, while withholding the benefit of a decrease is merely stingy, and a government could reasonably do the first and not the second. Expect a clean cut-off date rather than retrospective effect, because the alternative would mean reopening decided applications.

The MAC's recommendation of at least one year's notice matters here too. Because income is tested retrospectively over six to twelve months, a threshold that changed without warning would catch people who had already arranged their finances around the old figure.

How to plan when you do not know the answer

You cannot plan around an announcement that may not come. You can plan around the two outcomes, and the right approach differs depending on where your income sits today.

If you already meet £29,000

Apply. Waiting costs time, exposes you to a fee increase, and gains you nothing, because a lower threshold does not help someone who already clears the higher one. Fees rose on 8 April 2026 and the annual fees order is a spring fixture. The current position is £2,064 to apply from outside the UK and £1,407 from inside, plus the immigration health surcharge at £1,035 a year for an adult.

If you are close, within a few thousand pounds

Look at the categories before you look at the calendar. A shortfall of £3,000 or £4,000 is often closed by combining income with savings, by using non-employment income under Category C, or by evidencing under Category B rather than Category A where a recent pay rise or second income exists. Many couples who believe they are short are short only on how they have assembled the evidence, and that does not need a rule change.

If you are a long way short

Waiting has more logic here, but treat it as a plan with a review date rather than an open ended hope. Keep building income or savings so that a rule change is a bonus rather than the whole strategy, and take advice on whether the exempt benefits route or GEN.3.2 applies to you. If the sponsor receives a qualifying benefit, the threshold is already irrelevant and the wait is unnecessary.

The other family route changes already in the diary

Two further changes sit alongside the threshold question, and both are frequently confused with it. Neither is confirmed law for the family route as at 1 September 2026.

The first is earned settlement. The consultation opened on 28 November 2025 and closed on 12 February 2026. It proposed a ten year baseline qualifying period for settlement, with a reduction for defined groups, and it specifically proposed that partners, parents and children of British citizens who meet core family requirements would continue to settle after five years, as they can now. That is a proposal in a consultation whose response has not been published. Our post on the earned settlement timetable tracks where it has got to, and the ILR eligibility calculator will work out your current qualifying date under the rules as they stand.

The second is English language. A B2 standard for settlement has been announced for 26 March 2027, but whether it reaches the family and partner route in the same form is not confirmed on GOV.UK and we have not been able to verify it either way. Our guide to which English tests UKVI accepts for ILR after 26 March 2027 covers the test providers, and the five year route to ILR service page covers what settlement requires today.

Confirmed law and proposal, side by side

If you take one table away from this post, take this one.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

Most family visa refusals we see are not caused by a couple earning too little. They are caused by income that meets £29,000 being presented under the wrong category, by payslips and bank statements that do not reconcile, or by savings held for five months rather than six. Our UK spouse visa service exists to catch those problems before the application is submitted, when they still cost nothing to fix. We will tell you which of Categories A to G your income falls into, what specified evidence each one demands, and whether combining income with savings closes a shortfall.

If your circumstances raise the exempt benefits route or exceptional circumstances under GEN.3.2, we will say so rather than letting you wait for a rule change that may not come. And if a family application has already been refused, our immigration appeals service can assess whether the refusal is challengeable or whether a properly evidenced fresh application is the faster route. Use the IHS and visa fee calculator to price the application before you start.

Conclusion

The £29,000 minimum income requirement has not been lowered. On 1 September 2026 there is no announced date, no draft rule and no government response to the review that questioned it. What exists is a MAC report from 10 June 2025 saying the threshold sits above the range the evidence supports, a white paper commitment from 12 May 2025 now eight months past its own deadline, and Immigration Rules that have been through three statements of changes in 2026 without touching this figure once.

For most couples the practical conclusion is the same whatever happens next. If you meet the threshold, apply, because a reduction gives you nothing and fees only move upwards. If you are within a few thousand pounds, the answer usually lies in the evidence categories rather than the number. If you are a long way short, build the position and review it on a date you choose rather than waiting on an announcement nobody has scheduled.

We will update this post when the government responds to the review or publishes the family policy the white paper promised. Until it does, £29,000 is the law, and everything else is a recommendation.

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