Most of the time, a pension can be used to meet the financial requirements for a spouse visa if the applicant is getting it. For a pension to count towards the financial requirement, the applicant must be getting money from it, not just have a pension pot they can’t access yet.

The applicant or their partner can count the gross annual income from a state pension (UK or foreign), an occupational pension, or a private pension as income, as long as the pension has been a source of income for at least 28 days before the date of application.

When meeting the financial requirement with pension income, only a small amount of proof is needed to support this. A person who wants to get a pension will have to show proof from the pension provider that they are eligible and how much they will get. The applicant will also have to show proof of getting the pension, such as a bank statement or other document from within the last 12 months.

Using pension income to meet the financial requirement for a spouse visa is thought to be one of the easiest ways to do so.

If the applicant or their partner’s pension income is less than £18,600 (or the appropriate amount if there are children to be included in the application), the difference can be made up by combining pension income with cash savings.

UK Spouse visa financial requirements: Meeting the requirement through combining cash savings with pension income

It’s not easy to figure out how much cash you need to save to make up for a shortfall in your pension income. Here, we talk about how much cash you need to save to make up any deficit with earnings. The same calculation can be used when pension income is used as earnings.

It’s hard to figure out how much money needs to be saved to make up for any shortfall. For example, it would not be enough for a person who makes £15,000 a year to show that they have cash savings of £3,600, which would bring them to the required £18,600.

Instead, if a person was applying for entry clearance in the UK based on a pension of £15,000, they would have to show that they have at least £25,000 in cash savings to ‘top-up’.

This is because you can only rely on cash savings of more than £16,000, and since the leave will last for 2.5 years, the savings need to cover that time.

Here is the calculation:

To calculate the amount of cash savings required to make up any deficit, the following calculation can be used:

(D x 2.5) + 16,000 = S

Where ‘D’ is the deficit amount and ‘S’ is the amount of savings required.

In the situation above for example, as the deficit would be £3,600, the calculation would be:

(3,600 x 2.5) + 16,000 = 25,000

Any cash savings that will be used must have been kept in a regulated financial institution for at least six months before the application date. They must be kept in a checking, savings, or investment account, and regular bank statements must be given. Any application that relies on cash savings must include bank statements for the six months before the application date and a statement about where the money came from.

UK Spouse visa financial requirements: How we can assist

This is just one way an applicant can meet the financial requirements. All of the other ways are listed in Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules.

If you need legal advice about this or any other part of a UK spouse visa application, please contact us. Atty Magsino is always happy to have an initial conversation.

Contact Atty Magsino

My name is Atty Lindoven Magsino, BSc, MBA, GDL, LLM, Ph.D. (candidate). I am a Partner & Solicitor /Lawyer and an advocate at Queen’s Park Solicitors. Our main office is located at Suite 4, Stewart House (formerly Glenny House), 56 Longbridge Road, Barking, Essex, England, IG11 8RT, United Kingdom | Telephone: 02036437508 / 07446 888 377 | Fax: 02033931725 Email: donm@queensparksolicitors.co.uk or queensparksolicitors@gmail.com | Regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA): 566513