Visiting the UK is covered by a family of routes, each for a different purpose. There are seven main ways to enter the UK as a visitor, including the non-visa ‘ETA‘ route. Picking the right one matters, as applying under the wrong route is a common reason for refusal or trouble at the border. 

Do you need a visa, or an ETA? 

Whether you need a full visa or a lighter digital permission depends on your nationality. 

If you’re a “Visa National“, you must apply for a visitor visa before you travel. If you’re visa-exempt, you don’t need a visitor visa, you need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), a £20 digital permission applied for through the UK ETA app. 

If you’re trying to bring your husband, wife or partner to the UK and your income doesn’t quite reach the threshold, you may be able to use your savings to bridge that gap.

The financial rules governing the use of savings are set out strictly in Appendix FM and Appendix FM-SE of the UK Immigration Rules. Under these pathways, the Home Office allows you to deploy cash savings either in full to satisfy the requirement, or as a flexible top-up alongside other qualifying income streams.

However, how you can rely on savings is strictly controlled by the rule and excludes a lot of common acceptable revenue from outside the country or previously accepted in the UK, e.g., third-party sponsorship is not allowed, migrant can rely on rotational future income offered

The income threshold in 2026

For most new applications, the minimum income requirement is £29,000 a year (gross, so before tax). That figure has been in place since 11 April 2024. Despite earlier plans to raise it to around £34,500 and then £38,700, those increases were paused and haven’t happened. So £29,000 remains the definitive number to work to in 2026.

For anyone living, working, or studying in the UK on a visa, compliance with immigration law is a top priority. Yet, many are caught off guard by a process known as visa curtailment. This occurs when the Secretary of State for the Home Department exercises the power to shorten or terminate an individual’s leave to remain before its original expiry date. This sudden shift can completely alter your life plans, career, or studies overnight. To protect your future in the UK, we will illuminate the triggers and your legal options in a curtailment situations.

Why Would the Home Office Curtail Your Visa?

When a migrant no longer meets certain requirements of the route their visa was granted under, the Home Office can step in. Under these rules, curtailment can either be mandatory or discretionary. 

The most common triggers include: 

• Loss of Sponsorship: If you are on a Skilled Worker or Student visa and your sponsoring employer or university withdraws their sponsorship (e.g. redundancy, business closure, or dropping out of a course). 

• Relationship Breakdown: If your visa is based on being the partner or spouse of a British citizen or settled person, and that relationship comes to an end. However, discretion may be applied in cases involving domestic abuse or other exceptional circumstances. If you are in this situation, you may apply for leave to remain under the Domestic Violence Concession. This provides a pathway for victims to regularise their status without relying on their abusive partner.

• Breach of Visa Conditions: Engaging in unauthorized actions, such as working more hours than permitted on a Student visa or working for an employer not listed on your Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS). 

We first wrote about this in 2013. More than a decade on, it’s still one of the most important things to understand before you pay anyone for immigration help. “UK Immigration Solicitor“, “UK Immigration Lawyer” and “UK Immigration adviser” are not interchangeable. The difference decides how well your case is handled and what protection you have if it goes wrong, and sometimes whether the person helping you is even acting lawfully. 

Following the Government’s late-2025 White Paper introducing a strict, tiered “Earned Settlement” architecture, the landscape of UK immigration is facing a constitutional and political tug-of-war. 

In our previous article, we explained how the Earned Settlement Plan aims to replace the traditional, reliable 5-year route to Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) with an economically stratified model. For many, this could push the settlement baseline to 10, 15, or even 20 years, depending on one’s type of employment.

However, the ground has shifted significantly. On 23 June 2026, the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee published its 1st Report of Session 2026-27 (HL Paper 13), delivering a formal warning to the Government over the fairness, and structural flaws of these proposed changes.