The UK golden visas is the most popular route to settle in the United Kingdom for the rich and wealthy.  The scheme also provides path to citizenship to those who invest a £2m to £10 million pounds. Some 4000 rich families obtained residence in the UK through high value investor visa route.

The UK Government has opened immigration route for HNW investors on 1 October 1994. Up to 2004, investor applicants were required to hold at least £1 million in the UK and to invest £750,000 in UK Government bonds, stocks or corporate bonds. In addition, the applicant had to make the UK their main home.

In 2008, the UK introduced golden visa programme, officially  known as the ‘Tier 1 (Investor)’ route, replacing the previous ‘Investor Immigrant’ category, firstly introduced in 1994. From 1994 to Oct 2014, the investment amount remained the same £1 million unaltered.

When the scheme launched in 2008, only 3 applications were received in Q3 2008 since then within a decade, UK’s golden visa scheme has become one of the most popular immigration schemes in the world for HNW population.

Changes

The UK Home office on Oct, 2014, increased the investment amount for Tier 1 investor visas from £1 million to £2 million, and made further amendments to the investor program such as no loans, no topping, no investment in UK property. From April 2017 onwards, criminal certificate was made compulsory along with opening bank account in the UK.

Investment conditions

  • Settle after 5 years if you invest £2,000,000 or more in UK government bonds, share capital or loan capital in active and trading UK registered companies
  • Settle after 2 years if you invest £10 million pounds
  • Settle after 3 years if you invest £5 million pounds

 

Summary

We have analyzed the Tier1 investor visa report for 10 years from 2008 to 2018, published by UK Government and have arrived at these conclusions.

  • FDI: UK received some £4.8 billion foreign investment into UK through tier1 investor scheme (assuming each investor contributed £1 million until 2015 and £2 million after 2016 to 2018
  • Total Investor visas: The total Investor visas has been granted to 3988 main investors and 6952 dependents, making it a total of 10,940 persons receiving entry clearance or residence permits under tier1 investor category.  Each investor on average brought two family members at an average of (1.7)
  • Brexit: In June 2016, UK voted for Brexit but it had no effect on investor visas. Infact for 2017, the number applications increased by 57% instead of declining.
  • Refusal rate: The Refusal rate for dependents  is 9.3% is higher than main investors (7.4%)
  • Approval rate: The Approval rates have been around 95% for the year 2017 and 2018 for tier1 investor visa applications
  • Withdrawn/Lapsed cases: For Main investors, 28 applications have been withdrawn and 1 lapsed. For dependents 48 applications have been withdrawn and 9 lapsed.
  • Applications received: A total of 4,359 investment applications received for the UK investor visa in the past ten years from 2008 to 2018, averaging 36 applications per month.

 

Main Applicants

The year 2014 has received the highest number of applications. The average approval rate is 91%. The refusal rate remained highest in 2008, 2009 and 2015

Main Applicant
Applications Resolved Granted Refused Approval % Refusal %
2008 68 53 43 10 81.13% 18.87%
2009 173 176 153 19 86.93% 10.80%
2010 233 232 211 18 90.95% 7.76%
2011 383 364 331 30 90.93% 8.24%
2012 507 508 470 37 92.52% 7.28%
2013 604 601 565 33 94.01% 5.49%
2014 1293 1277 1172 98 91.78% 7.67%
2015 190 219 192 26 87.67% 11.87%
2016 240 245 217 24 88.57% 9.80%
2017 378 368 350 17 95.11% 4.62%
2018 290 296 284 10 95.95% 3.38%
Total 4359 4339 3988 322 91.91% 7.42%

 

Dependents

A total of 724 dependents have been refused for investors. The approval rate for dependents stands less than 90%

Dependents
Applications Resolved Granted Refused Approval %
2008 139 111 95 15 85.59% 13.51%
2009 322 327 282 38 86.24% 11.62%
2010 438 420 372 41 88.57% 9.76%
2011 623 607 529 68 87.15% 11.20%
2012 1012 1011 920 86 91.00% 8.51%
2013 1103 1104 1038 61 94.02% 5.53%
2014 2131 2090 1823 254 87.22% 12.15%
2015 484 559 516 39 92.31% 6.98%
2016 420 433 373 57 86.14% 13.16%
2017 578 567 531 35 93.65% 6.17%
2018 495 504 473 30 93.85% 5.95%
Total 7745 7733 6952 724 89.90% 9.36%