UK raises London student visa maintenance

The Home Office will raise the London student visa maintenance requirement to £1,570 a month from 30 November 2026.

Applications decided before the cutoff will keep the current London figure of £1,529 per month under existing Student route rules.

The change appears in Statement of changes to the Immigration Rules: HC 584, laid before Parliament on 3 September 2026.

It replaces the current London figure of £1,529 for applications decided under the updated Student route rules.

Applications made before 30 November 2026 will still be assessed under the rules in force on 29 November 2026.

The new figures sit inside the Student route provisions that govern proof of living costs.

The current rules ask applicants to show £1,529 per month for courses in London and £1,171 per month outside London.

That covers up to 9 months of living costs.

That means the maximum amount to show is £13,761 in London and £10,539 elsewhere in the UK.

The guidance also says the money must be held for 28 consecutive days, and the closing balance must be dated within 31 days of the visa application.

The new rate overtakes the old London figure, but not before 30 November

The London figure had already moved up once before.

The rules that took effect in November 2025 set it at £1,529, after an earlier level of £1,334.

Outside London, the figure stood at £1,171 under the same November 2025 rules.

That was up from £1,023.

The new statement keeps the old rules alive for a short stretch.

Applications made before the cutoff will not switch early.

The timing matters because the change lands late in the year.

Students with plans for the autumn term will face two different thresholds depending on when their application is decided.

The visa rule is separate from student finance

That distinction is easy to miss.

The maintenance loan is a different support stream altogether.

For 2026/27, the maximum Student Finance England maintenance loan for an English student living away from home in London is £14,135 a year.

Different rates apply for other living arrangements.

The government has also been pushing out maintenance support for the new academic year.

On 2 September 2026, it said: “This month, we’re scheduled to pay £2.6billion in maintenance support to 1.1m students across England”, helping to manage living costs as the new academic year begins.

That notice came one day before the Home Office laid HC 584.

Different programs, same pressure point.

The visa rule still turns on cash held in an applicant’s account.

The student finance figure does not.

For student visa applicants, the London maintenance requirement is the amount they must show for living costs under the Student route rules, subject to the usual course-length and evidence rules.

Anyone applying on or after 30 November 2026 should use the new £1,570 monthly London figure.

The Home Office laid HC 584 before Parliament on 3 September 2026.

The new Student route paragraphs take effect on 30 November 2026