UK Spouse Visa Financial Requirement Calculator (2026)

How the financial requirement is calculated

The formula

The test is income plus the usable part of cash savings against the threshold. Usable savings are the amount above the £16,000 disregard divided by 2.5, so with no qualifying income at all the requirement of £29,000 takes £88,500 in the bank. Turned around, the cash savings needed at any income are the disregard plus 2.5 times the gap — every £1 of shortfall costs £2.5 of savings, on top of the £16,000 that never counts toward anything.

The divisor changes at settlement

Savings above the disregard are divided by 2.5 at entry clearance, at initial permission to stay and at further permission to stay, because that reflects the 30 months before a further application is due. At the indefinite leave to remain stage there is no further application to cover, so the whole amount above the disregard counts and the same threshold takes £45,000 instead of £88,500. Applying the 2.5 divisor at settlement is the single most common error in published figures and overstates the savings needed by close to double.

Three child regimes co-exist

On the £29,000 route there is no child element at all: the guidance is explicit that the amount does not vary where there are dependent children, and a child applying under Appendix FM has to meet the same requirement as the parent they are joining. The child component of £3,800 for a first child and £2,400 for each additional child survives only on the retained £18,600 threshold. Children who are British, Irish, settled, EU Settlement Scheme grantees or qualifying EEA nationals are never counted toward it.

Transitional cases are capped at £29,000, which is why the ladder flattens at four children. Applications actually submitted before 11 April 2024 are uncapped and still produce higher figures, so that column is live for legacy and appealed cases.

Which income counts, and in which category

Appendix FM-SE sorts income into lettered categories, and the category decides both how the figure is worked out and whether cash savings may be added to it.

• Category A — employment with the current employer for six months or more. The figure used for a salaried job is the lowest gross annual salary received during those six months, not the current or average one.
• Category B — under six months with the current employer, or variable income. Two limbs, both of which have to be met: the current annual salary, and the income actually received in the previous 12 months.
• Category C — non-employment income over the previous 12 months, such as rent, dividends, interest, maintenance payments, certain benefits and pensions schemes, or a maintenance grant. The underlying asset has to be owned at the date of application.
• Category D — cash savings held for the six months before the date of application, with the first £16,000 disregarded because that is the capital limit for income-related benefits.
• Category E — pension income, countable once the pension has been a source of income for at least 28 days before the application.
• Categories F and G — self-employment or a specified limited company, using the last full financial year, or the mean average of the last two.

The combination rules are where most published figures go wrong. Categories F and G cannot be combined with cash savings at all: £22,000 of self-employment income alongside £30,000 in the bank gets no credit whatsoever for those savings, and the savings route would take the full £88,500. The identical £22,000 as salaried Category A employment would need only £33,500. Cash savings also cannot help the second limb of Category B, which has to be met on income actually received. Savings remain available as a sole means of meeting the requirement in every case, including for the self-employed.

When the minimum income requirement does not apply

Where the sponsor receives one of the following benefits, the minimum income requirement is replaced by the adequate maintenance test — weekly net income minus weekly housing costs, compared with the Income Support an equivalent-sized British family would receive. Personal debt is not deducted; only housing costs are.

• Carer's Allowance
• Disability Living Allowance
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
• Attendance Allowance
• Personal Independence Payment
• Armed Forces Independence Payment or Guaranteed Income Payment under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme
• Constant Attendance Allowance, Mobility Supplement or War Disablement Pension under the War Pensions Scheme
• Police Injury Pension
• Child Disability Payment (Scotland)
• Adult Disability Payment (Scotland)
• Carer's Support Payment (Scotland)
• Pension Age Disability Payment (Scotland)
• Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance (Scotland)
• Any of the above received by the sponsor on behalf of their child

Two further routes disapply the requirement, both leading to the 10-year route to settlement rather than the 5-year one: EX.1, which is available only on in-country applications, and GEN.3.1, under which other credible and reliable sources of funds are considered where refusal could breach Article 8. The Appendix FM parent route always uses adequate maintenance rather than the minimum income requirement.

The threshold is current, and it is under review

£29,000 is the figure in force and has been since 11 April 2024. The staged rise to £34,500 and then £38,700 announced in December 2023 never entered the Immigration Rules; increases were paused in September 2024 and the Migration Advisory Committee was asked to review the family financial requirements. It reported on 10 June 2025 without recommending a single figure, putting measures of a family supporting itself in a range of £19,000 to £28,000 for the sponsor alone, with a cluster of measures between £23,000 and £25,000. No government response has been published. Because a change could land in any statement of changes, this page carries the date its figures were verified.