Check the family visa financial requirement in minutes — both versions of it. If your sponsor receives a qualifying disability or carer's benefit, the £29,000 minimum income requirement is replaced by the adequate maintenance test, and this calculator runs whichever applies: enter your figures and see exactly where you stand before you spend a penny on the application.
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Calculator & Maintenance Test
The Calculator
Choose your route, enter the figures, and see whether the financial requirement is met — including the exact weekly threshold for your family under the adequate maintenance test.
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CalculationClose to the line, or unsure what counts as income? Our family visa team plans the evidence before you apply — get expert advice on where you stand.
When Adequate Maintenance Applies
The adequate maintenance test replaces the minimum income requirement when the sponsor receives a qualifying benefit: Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Carer's Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Armed Forces Independence Payment, or a War Disablement Pension. For these families the law asks a different question — not "do you earn £29,000?" but "can you support yourselves without additional public funds?" — and for many disabled and carer sponsors it's the difference between a possible application and an impossible one.
The Formula
Adequate maintenance has a precise legal meaning from the case law: after housing costs, the family's net income must be at least what an equivalent family would receive on Income Support. The calculator runs exactly that — your weekly net income, minus rent or mortgage and council tax, compared against the Income Support-equivalent rate for your family's size and composition, with amounts added per child. The rates update every April; the calculator carries the current ones, which is why the copy on this page quotes the formula and leaves the figures to the tool.
The Standard Route Compared
Without a qualifying benefit, the standard route applies: £29,000 for first applications since April 2024, with the £18,600 threshold — plus child additions — preserved for those extending on the pre-2024 route. If you’ve heard the figure £38,700: the further staged rises announced in 2023 were never implemented, and the level has since been under review — £29,000 is the requirement that actually applies today. Cash savings above £16,000, held for six months, can substitute for income at the statutory rate the calculator applies. The full picture, including what's under review politically, sits on our family visa page.
Evidence That Passes
Adequate maintenance cases are won on paperwork discipline: benefit award letters, bank statements showing the income actually arriving, tenancy agreement or mortgage statement and council tax bill proving the housing costs, and payslips for any earnings — all covering the right periods, all consistent with each other. Caseworkers apply the Home Office guidance mechanically; the file has to make their arithmetic easy.
Why Applications Fail the Test
The recurring mistakes: housing costs understated (council tax forgotten, then found by the caseworker); income claimed that the rules don't count, or counted income — like the applicant's own permitted earnings in extension applications — left out; savings held in the wrong account or for the wrong period; and evidence that tells two slightly different stories. Most refusals here aren't people who fail the maths — they're people who failed the documentation of maths they actually pass.
From Calculator to Application
If the calculator says you pass, the next step is making the evidence prove it — our application checking service reviews a self-prepared application at a fixed fee, and our family visa team takes over fully where the case warrants it. If you're short, don't apply and hope: a refusal goes on the record. Planning — income sources, savings timing, the right route — is what turns borderline into approved.
Why Connaught Law
MIR and adequate maintenance in the same calculator — because choosing the right test is half the battle.
Thresholds track the April benefit uprating — the tool updates, the advice stays right.
Your application is handled by our experienced immigration team directly — with the evidence planned before you apply.
If you don't pass yet, we say so — and map the route to passing, instead of filing a refusal onto your record.
Fee structures are set out on our fees page — fixed fees for family applications and checking, agreed before we start.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the adequate maintenance test?
The alternative financial requirement for family visas where the sponsor receives a qualifying disability or carer's benefit: after housing costs, the family's net income must equal at least what a comparable British family would receive on Income Support. It replaces the £29,000 minimum income requirement entirely — often a far more achievable standard for disabled and carer sponsors.
What income counts towards adequate maintenance?
More than people expect: the sponsor's benefits themselves count, along with earnings, pensions and some other reliable income — and in extension applications the applicant's own permitted UK earnings count too. Third-party support can assist in limited circumstances. What counts, and how it must be evidenced, decides borderline cases; that's precisely where advice earns its fee.
What are the current adequate maintenance rates?
The calculator above carries the current Income Support-equivalent rates for each family composition, with additions per child — and they change every April with benefit uprating, which is why we maintain them in the tool rather than printing figures that go stale. Run your family through it for today's threshold.
If I pass the calculator, will my application succeed?
Passing the maths is necessary, not sufficient: the requirement must be evidenced in the specific documents, formats and periods the rules demand, and most financial refusals are documentation failures by families who genuinely qualified. Pass the calculator, then make the file prove it — our checking service exists for exactly that moment.
Whatever the calculator said, the application still has to prove it. Tell us your figures and we'll plan the evidence that gets the visa — before a refusal reaches your record.
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