With the new visa and income rules being implemented in the UK, migrants who earn less than £29,000 will not be able to sponsor the visa of a family member. Earlier, this threshold was £18,600. Clearly, Prime Minister is serious about reducing immigrants. This also means that lesser number of Indian migrants to Britain will be able to fulfil this criterion.
This doesn’t come as a surprise because in December 2023, Britain had announced plans to gradually increase the minimum salary criteria for family visas, aiming to provide stability for immigrant families. At the time, it was revealed that minimum salary for skilled work visas would be raised initially to £29,000, up from the current £18,600, and would gradually reach £38,700 without a specified timeline beyond spring. The objective is to reduce the number of legal migrants and also release some pressure off tax payers.
The present hike in the income benchmark of about 55 per cent is also quite significant. It is reported that almost 50 per cent of migrants from India to Britain earned less than £39,000 in 2022, as per data from the migration observatory of Oxford University.
While Indians account for a sizeable number of immigrants who do not belong to EU, most of them are students. Most others come from Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
