Barr Abbas Chowdhury & Legal Updates

15/06/2024

24/05/2024

New proposals will further crackdown on student visas.

New proposals will further crackdown on student visas, ensuring only genuine students can come to the UK; route will be kept under review.

31/01/2024

Changes to legal migration rules for family and work visas in 2024


What are the five changes?
Social care workers will not be allowed to bring dependants (that is, partners and children) on their visa.

The baseline minimum salary to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa will rise from £26,200 to £38,700 (but not for the Health and Care Worker visa, which includes social care, or for education workers on national pay scales).

Changes to the shortage occupation list to reduce the number of jobs where it will be possible to sponsor overseas workers below the usual minimum salary (which is the main purpose of the list)

The minimum income normally required to sponsor someone for a spouse/partner visa will rise in stages to £18,600 per year to £29,000 and ultimately around £38,700.

The Migration Advisory Committee will review the Graduate visa, a two-year unsponsored work permit for overseas graduates of British universities.

When will the changes happen?

Banning newly arriving care workers from bringing immediate family will happen on 11 March 2024.

The Skilled Worker minimum salary increase will happen on 4 April 2024.

Initial changes to the shortage occupation list will also happen in April 2024 (very likely 4 April); the Migration Advisory Committee is working on its recommendation for the new list.

The spouse/partner visa minimum income will first increase to £29,000 on 11 April 2024; to around £34,500 at an unspecified time later in 2024; and finally to around £38,700 “by early 2025”.

The Home Office was supposed to commission the Migration Advisory Committee to begin work on the Graduate visa review in January 2024 (but had not yet done so at time of writing), with the committee expected to report in late 2024.

17/01/2024

Substantial rises to the Immigration Health Surcharge have now been approved by Parliament to come into effect within the next few weeks. Individuals hoping to avoid these should submit their UK immigration application by 5 February 2024 to be sure they are not impacted.

The annual IHS fees for adult applicants will increase to GBP 1,035 per person – a 66 percent increase from the current GBP 624.

21/12/2023

Minimum income requirement for spouse visa will initially rise to £29,000 in Spring 2024 and will be incrementally increased to £38,700

The Government has watered down on its plans to increase salary thresholds for foreign spouse visas, cutting the newly proposed fee by almost £10,000.

The Home Office confirmed further details of new migration plans on Thursday which showed that while the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) on the family migration route would ultimately increase to £38,700, as had already been announced, in initial stages the threshold would only rise to £29,000. The current threshold is £18,600.

26/10/2023

Very good initiative indeed.

Online Safety Act receives Royal Assent putting rules to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online into law.

29/06/2023

The Court of Appeal has ruled that Rwanda is not a safe third country for migrants to be deported to.

23/05/2023

The rules are being changed to reduce the huge number of dependents arriving in the UK after the number rocketed from 16,000 in 2019 to 136,000 in 2022. | ITV National News