Changes to Immigration Rules from 11 January 2018

New Statement of changes was passed to the Parliament on the 7th of December 2017. These changes will come into force from 11th of January 2018. We are pointing out the most significant ones.

PBS Dependant partners

The most significant change will apply to the number of absence days of PBS Dependant partners. Now the limitation of 180 absence days applies only to the main applicant, but from 11th of January the same requirement will apply to PBS Dependant partners. In order to avoid the retrospective effect, new rules will apply to the PBS Dependent applicants who will apply on or after 11th of January.

At the stage of initial application PBS Applicants and PBS Dependants will have to prove that they are in genuine and subsisting relationships along with family members applying under Appendix FM.

Tier 1 (Investor)

Investors, who applied for visa before 6th of November 2014, will be able to rely on funds of the un-mortgaged private property, which is the applicant’s main home. In case the property is co-owned, the investor can rely only on his share.

Tier 1 (Entrepreneur)

If funds are held by another business, which is not the business that applicant rely to score points, then these funds will be considered as a funding from a third party.

To avoid recycling the funds between the applicants the new rule is introduced. The applicants can not rely on funds or investments that have been provided by another Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa holder or his close family members. The question “who can be considered as close family member” will be considered individually.

While extending the visa, Entrepreneurs will have to provide the information on the paid hours as well as hourly rates for all employees in jobs that were created by Entrepreneur in order to avoid calculation errors.

Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent)

Applicants under this category will be able to qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the UK after 3 years of continuous residence instead of five years as it is at the moment. This change is not applicable for Tier 1 (Exceptional promise) subcategory. These applicants will be able to qualify for ILF only after 5 years.

The number of places for Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) is doubled to 2000 per year.

Tier 2 (General)

Students will be able to apply to switch from Tier 4 to Tier 2 category as soon as they have completed the studies. Now they can apply to switch to Tier 2 visa only when they receive their final results.

Tier 2 Migrants are no longer required to be continuously employed (the period of search for the new employer is no longer than 60 days) in order to qualify to apply for ILR. This limitation will be withdrawn and if the migrant requires more than 60 days to find a new employer, he will still be able to qualify for ILR.

Tier 4

Part-time student will be able to apply under Tier 4 category at the certain levels. In this case, applicant will not have the right to work, bring dependants and extend the visa in the UK.

There is a change to Visitor visa as well. People who already have Standard Visit and Marriage Visit visas will not need to apply for a separate transit visa in order to transit the UK