UK drops new investor visa from 28 October Budget, FT says

Chancellor John Healey will not include a new visa route for wealthy people from overseas in his Budget next week, the Financial Times reported on 21 October. According to the FT, plans for such a programme were well advanced under Sir Keir Starmer's administration. The Budget is due on 28 October.

The report follows Bloomberg's account on 16 October that the Chancellor was weighing a new route similar to the investor visa that closed in 2022. Two outside proposals were among the options Bloomberg described. The first, from the think tank IPPR, would see applicants invest £5 million in a vehicle overseen by the British Business Bank. The second, from the lobby group Foreign Investors for Britain, would require at least £2.5 million in qualifying investments, with the option of a flat-rate tax of £200,000 a year (both as of 16 October 2026, per Bloomberg).

The FT report is based on government briefings, and there has been no formal announcement. The UK has had no investor visa since the Tier 1 (Investor) route closed in February 2022, and an invite-only route has been discussed since then but never enacted.