UK Spouse and Family Visas 2026: The Income Requirement Explained

No number in British immigration carries more human weight than the minimum income requirement — the figure that decides which international marriages live in Britain and which live on video calls. The MIR as Appendix FM now runs it: the evidence categories that actually pass files, the savings formula, and the two-track system the requirement sorts couples into.

The MIR: £29,000 and its history

The requirement's biography explains its politics: introduced at £18,600 in 2012, raised to £29,000 in 2024 amid announced steps toward £38,700 — then frozen pending the Migration Advisory Committee's review, whose recommendations and the government's response continue shaping the number. Planning consequence: the figure at your application date governs — check gov.uk's current amount before any filing, and treat announced trajectories as weather, not law. What the MIR is not: an ongoing test of the household — it bites at application, extension and settlement checkpoints, not monthly. And children under the current framework: no separate child add-on within the partner route's MIR machinery (the pre-2024 per-child additions were absorbed) — but children's own applications carry their own fees and IHS.

Meeting it: the categories that pass files

• Category A (the workhorse): the sponsor employed with the same employer 6+ months at £29,000+ — 6 months' payslips + bank statements + employer letter: the clean file;
• Category B: variable/new employment — current salary annualised plus the last 12 months actually totalling the threshold: the job-changer's category, evidence-heavier;
• Self-employment categories: the last full tax year's taxable income (SA302s, accounts, the accountant's letter) — timing the application to the tax calendar is the self-employed sponsor's whole strategy;
• The savings formula: cash savings above £16,000, held 6 months, divided by 2.5 → income-equivalent: full substitution at £16,000 + (29,000 × 2.5) = £88,500; partial combinations with income run the same arithmetic on the shortfall;
• The applicant's overseas income counts for nothing at entry — the German engineer marrying a British teacher discovers her salary is invisible until she's in the UK (in-country extensions do count her UK earnings: the system's one mercy);
• Third-party support doesn't count in the mainstream categories — parental guarantees, however wealthy, are not MIR evidence.

The two tracks: five years or ten

The 10-year track is Appendix FM's shadow system — the route couples fall onto when the MIR fails but children or insurmountable obstacles engage the protections: same marriage, twice the clock, twice the fees, and renewals whose lapses generate the overstay emergencies immigration advisers spend their weeks untangling. The strategic reading is blunt: the MIR is worth extraordinary effort to meet — a sponsor's six months at a second job, the savings marshalled from family into the sponsor's own account (held six months, provenance documented), the application timed to the strongest category — because the alternative track costs the difference in years and five figures.

Meeting the MIR: the eighteen-month campaign

Because the requirement tests the sponsor's history, couples separated by it fight a campaign measured in payslips. The standard playbook a competent adviser sketches: month zero — audit the sponsor's position against the categories honestly (salary, employment length, the tax-year's shape for the self-employed) and pick the target category, because evidence assembles differently for each; months one to six — build Category A's six-month run (the job change to a £29,000+ role, held six months, is the single most common MIR strategy in Britain) while the savings track runs in parallel: family contributions consolidated into the sponsor's own account now, because the six-month holding rule means money moved at month five buys nothing; months six to twelve — the application window opens: payslips banked, statements matching to the penny (the FM-SE rules' formalism refuses mismatched documents that substantively qualify), the A1 SELT booked for the applicant, the relationship file curated; the filing — timed to the strongest evidence moment, not the emotional one. The campaign's honest arithmetic: eighteen months of discipline versus the ten-year track's five extra years — the best-paying project either partner will ever run. And the in-country dividend deserves repeating: once the applicant works in Britain, both incomes count at extension — most MIR stories are hard exactly once.

The rest of the file

• The relationship: genuine-and-subsisting evidence — the life's paper (cohabitation, communication, visits, the wedding's reality); refusals for thin relationship evidence outnumber the mythology about them;
• English: A1 (speaking/listening SELT) at entry → A2 at extension → B1 + Life in the UK at settlement — the ladder that rewards starting early (Language Lab's English track runs the SELT families' levels);
• Accommodation: adequate without overcrowding (the room-standard letters for shared houses);
• Costs assembled: entry application ~£1,938 + IHS £1,035×2.5 years ≈ £4,500 at the door; the extension repeats; settlement adds the £3,029 class — the 5-year arc lands £8,000–10,000 per person before travel and tests;
• Processing: the published service standards with priority tiers — and the separation months they represent are the system's unpriced cost.

FAQ

Sources (official only)

• Appendix FM and the MIR: gov.uk — Appendix FM; evidence categories: Appendix FM-SE
• The current figure and guidance: gov.uk — family visa: proof of income
• Fees and IHS: gov.uk — fees; the IHS Order
• The MAC review context: gov.uk — Migration Advisory Committee

Verified against gov.uk as of 22 July 2026; the MIR remains politically live. Information, not legal advice.