Proof Of Funds For A Skilled Worker Visa: Exact Amount Required 2026

That single number is the easy part. The reason people are refused is almost never the amount it is the calendar around it, which is why proof of funds for a Skilled Worker visa is better understood as a 31-day sequence than as a figure.

Quick answer: You need £1,270 for a Skilled Worker visa, held in your own account for 28 consecutive days, with day 28 falling within 31 days of the date you apply. Dependants add £285 for a partner, £315 for a first child and £200 for each additional child. Your sponsor can certify these funds on your certificate of sponsorship instead.

What The £1,270 Actually Is

It is money you prove you have, not money you hand over.

This is the first place applicants lose track. The £1,270 is not a fee, not a deposit, and nobody collects it. It sits in your account before, during and after the application, and you keep every penny of it. The Home Office is only checking that you can pay for your first weeks in the UK without claiming public funds.

It also sits entirely separately from the money you genuinely do spend. The visa application fee ranges from £769 to £1,751 depending on your circumstances, and the immigration health surcharge is usually £1,035 for each year of your stay. Those are payments. The £1,270 is evidence.

One more separation worth fixing in your head early: maintenance funds have nothing to do with your salary threshold. Your job must normally pay at least £41,700 a year or the going rate for your occupation code, whichever is higher, with £33,400 applying in certain reduced-salary situations. A high salary does not excuse you from showing the £1,270, and showing the £1,270 does not help a salary that falls short. Two separate tests, two separate ways to fail. [internal link: UK Skilled Worker visa salary requirements]

Getting The Money Into The Right Account

The clock does not start until the full amount is sitting in an account that qualifies.

Day zero is the day the balance first reaches £1,270 and the account is one the Home Office will accept. Get either half of that wrong and you will restart the count later, usually after you have already booked flights.

The account must be in your own name, or held jointly with a partner who is applying with you. Money in a parent’s account does not count. Money a friend is holding for you does not count. A business account does not count, even if you own the business. This is one of the sharpest lines in the rules and caseworkers apply it without flexibility.

The money must also be cash you can reach immediately.

Counts as proof of funds	Does not count
Current account balance	Overdraft facility
Savings account balance	Available credit on a credit card
Fixed deposit you can access	Shares, bonds and investment funds
Joint account with an applying partner	Pension pot
Funds held in local currency, converted	Prepaid card balance
	Money in a parent’s or friend’s account

If your savings are in rupees, naira, pesos or any currency other than sterling, the conversion is done at the exchange rate on the date you apply not the date you deposited. Currencies move. Build in a cushion of ten to fifteen percent above the sterling figure so a bad week on the exchange rate does not drop you under the line on the one day that matters.

Practical move on day zero: open a separate savings account, put the money in, and do not touch that account again until the visa is decided. Every automatic payment you leave attached to the account is a chance to fail.

The Unbroken Holding Period

Twenty-eight consecutive days, and the balance may not dip below the required amount on any one of them.

The word doing the work here is consecutive. Not twenty-eight days on average. Not twenty-eight days in the last two months. Twenty-eight days in an unbroken run, with the balance at or above the required figure at the close of every single day in that run.

A direct debit that takes you to £1,268 on day nineteen ends the run. A card payment that clears late and dips you under for a few hours before payday ends the run. The caseworker reads every line of the statement, and there is no threshold of triviality a shortfall of two pounds for one day is treated the same as a shortfall of two hundred.

Money arriving during the window is fine. Money leaving is what kills applications. So the safe pattern is a dedicated account with no cards issued against it, no standing orders, no subscriptions, and no salary being routed through it. Let it be boring for four weeks.

There is a second, quieter risk in this phase. A single very large deposit landing days before the window opens can prompt questions about whether the money is really yours or was lent to you for the application. It is not automatically fatal, but a caseworker who suspects borrowed funds may look harder at everything else. If a large transfer is genuine a property sale, a gratuity, a family gift you have documentation for keep the paperwork ready even though you may never be asked for it.

The Closing Balance That Gets Checked

Day 28 is the anchor date for everything that follows.

Once the twenty-eighth consecutive day passes, you have satisfied the holding requirement. The statement you request should close on or after that day and show the whole run, so the caseworker can see the balance never fell.

The document itself has to look like a bank document. Statements are expected to show your name, the account number, the date of the statement, the name or logo of the financial institution, and the transactions across the period. A screenshot of a banking app with the balance in large type and nothing else around it is the single most common weak document in this category. If you are printing statements yourself from online banking, most applicants get them stamped by the branch or obtain a supporting letter from the bank confirming the details that removes an argument you do not want to be having later.

If your bank issues statements only on a fixed monthly cycle, request an interim or ad-hoc statement covering the exact window. Almost every bank will produce one on request, and it usually takes a few working days rather than the same afternoon. Ask early.

Your Narrow Filing Window

Day 28 must fall within 31 days of your application date, which gives you a short window, not an open one.

This is the phase that catches organised people. They hold the money perfectly, obtain a clean statement, and then wait for a document, for a certificate of sponsorship, for a travel plan to firm up. By the time they submit, the statement has aged past the limit and the whole twenty-eight day run has to be evidenced again with fresher paperwork.

Two dates worth writing down before you do anything else:

• Your application date is the day you submit the online form and pay the fee. Not the day you attend the biometrics appointment. Not the day you upload documents.
• The 31-day count runs backwards from that application date to day 28 of your holding period.

Read together, the practical shape is this: hold the money for twenty-eight days, then apply within roughly the next three weeks. Do not let the gap widen. And note that the money should remain in the account after you apply the requirement is not something you satisfy and then unwind.

Stage	What must be true
Days 1–28	Balance at or above the required amount every single day
Day 28	Holding period complete; statement closes on or after this date
Days 29–31+	Application submitted so that day 28 sits within 31 days of it
After submission	Funds stay in place until a decision is made

Application Day: The Documents You Upload

Bank statements only become “other documents you might need” which is precisely why people skip them and get refused.

On the official documents list, evidence of personal savings appears under documents you might be asked for, depending on your circumstances. That soft wording leads a surprising number of applicants to treat it as optional. It is not optional if the requirement applies to you.

What you upload:

• Statements covering the full 28-day period, showing every day’s closing position
• Statements for each account you are relying on, if the money is split
• A certified translation if the statements are not in English or Welsh
• The same for any dependant’s account you are using

Split funds are allowed but they add risk, because now every account has to hold its share for the full unbroken window. One account is cleaner. Consolidate before day zero, not during the count.

After Submission: What The Caseworker Looks For

The check is mechanical, and it is done line by line.

There is very limited discretion built into this part of the rules. The caseworker is confirming four things: that the amount was right, that the days were consecutive, that the statement is recent enough, and that the account belongs to someone permitted to hold the money. Each has a binary answer.

That is why maintenance refusals feel so harsh to people who receive them. The applicant had the money. They genuinely could support themselves. But the evidence failed a date test, and the date test does not care about the underlying truth.

The most frequent failure points, in the order they tend to appear:

• The balance dipped below the figure on one day inside the window
• The statement closed more than 31 days before the application was submitted
• The funds sat in a parent’s or third party’s account
• The exchange rate on the application date pushed the converted total below the threshold
• The applicant assumed the employer had certified maintenance, and the employer had not

That last one deserves its own section.

The Two Ways To Skip The Whole Timeline

Some applicants never need to hold anything, and many of them do not realise it in time.

There are two clean exemptions.

Your sponsor certifies maintenance. An A-rated sponsor can confirm on the certificate of sponsorship that it will maintain and accommodate you up to the end of your first month of employment, to a value of at least £1,270. Where that certification is properly made, you provide no bank statements at all. It is a real commitment by the employer, which is why not every sponsor makes it.

The mistake here is assumption. Applicants see that their employer is a large, reputable organisation and conclude the box will be ticked. Some employers tick it as standard policy; others deliberately leave it to the worker. Ask your HR contact directly, in writing, and ask before you start counting days. If the answer is no or unclear, begin the 28-day hold immediately you cannot manufacture those days retrospectively.

You have been in the UK for 12 months already. If you are applying from inside the UK for permission to stay and have held valid immigration permission for at least twelve months at the date of application, the financial requirement is met automatically. No statements, no counting. For dependants applying separately at a different time, the same logic applies to them individually: a family member who has been in the UK for under a year still has to evidence their own funds.

Adding Dependants To The Same Timeline

Family money stacks on top of the £1,270 and follows exactly the same 28-day and 31-day rules.

Who is applying	Amount required
Main applicant	£1,270
Partner	£285
First child	£315
Each additional child	£200

The amounts are cumulative. A worker bringing a partner and one child needs £1,270 plus £285 plus £315 — £1,870 in total. A worker with a partner and three children needs £1,270 plus £285 plus £315 plus £200 plus £200, which is £2,270.

The funds can be held by you, or by the partner or child concerned. They still need the unbroken twenty-eight days and the 31-day statement window, and the same exemptions apply sponsor certification covering the family, or twelve months of prior UK residence for everyone involved.

Before you plan around any of this, confirm your dependants are eligible in the first place. Restrictions introduced for care workers sponsored after March 2024, for medium-skilled roles sponsored after July 2025, and for Temporary Shortage List occupations mean some Skilled Worker visa holders cannot bring new dependants at all, subject to narrow exceptions such as children born in the UK. Money is not the obstacle in those cases.

Where Things Stand Today

The figure has held steady while nearly everything around it has tightened.

The £1,270 has been remarkably durable. Through the salary threshold rise, the shift to graduate-level skill requirements, the dependant restrictions and the English language step-up, the maintenance figure has stayed where it was and remains £1,270 on the official guidance as it stands in 2026.

That stability is worth reading correctly. It does not mean the requirement is a formality. It means the pressure in this route has moved to salary, skill level and dependant eligibility, while the maintenance rule quietly keeps refusing applications on technicalities that were entirely avoidable.

Key Takeaways

• The amount is £1,270 for the main applicant, unchanged in 2026.
• It must be held for 28 consecutive days, with no dip below the figure on any day.
• Day 28 must fall within 31 days of the date you submit and pay for your application.
• Dependants add £285 / £315 / £200 on top, under the same timing rules.
• The money must be in your own account or a joint account with an applying partner never a third party’s.
• Two exemptions: sponsor certification on the certificate of sponsorship, or twelve months of prior UK permission.
• Confirm sponsor certification in writing before you decide not to hold the funds.

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