In July, the UK announced the relaxation of its investment immigration policy. In addition to retaining the previous £1 million investment program with permanent residency after 5 years, the new policy introduces two accelerated investment immigration routes: a £5 million investment for permanent residency after 3 years, and a £10 million investment for permanent residency after 2 years. Simultaneously, the residency requirement has been reduced from the previous 9 months to 6 months per year.
For the newly introduced £5 million and £10 million accelerated investment immigration programs, due to the substantial investment amounts required and the limited number of eligible high-net-worth individuals, combined with the fact that they only offer an early green card status by 2 or 3 years—while still requiring 5 years of residency in the UK to apply for British citizenship—the cost-effectiveness is relatively low. Therefore, the 5-year £1 million investment immigration program remains the preferred choice for immigrants.
For the £1 million investment, investors have two options. The first is a direct investment of £1 million in UK government bonds for a 5-year term, after which the full principal can be recovered along with any interest generated. The second option is financing: if the applicant (or applicant plus spouse) possesses personal net assets of no less than £2 million, they may apply for a £1 million loan from a government-designated bank for a 5-year term, with a one-time interest payment of £170,000, which is non-refundable upon the expiration of the investment period.
The UK investment immigration program has no strict requirements regarding the source of assets; it only requires applicants to provide proof of assets. The declared assets can be acquired through any form, such as inheritance, gifts, securities investment, futures trading, or business operations. There are also no requirements for business management experience. As long as the applicant is at least 18 years old, they may apply as the primary applicant for UK investment immigration, even without prior work experience.
Precisely because there are no requirements for the source of assets or management experience, either spouse may choose to be the primary applicant. If a child in the family who is at least 18 years old wishes to remain in the UK, they may also apply as the primary applicant (in which case the parents cannot accompany them; the child must apply independently). Parents can transfer assets to the child's name, and the child can then apply for UK investment immigration in their own name.
According to the new UK investment immigration policy implemented on April 6, 2011, the primary applicant is required to reside in the UK for at least 6 months each year during the 5-year visa period, while there are no residency requirements for secondary applicants (spouse and children). Once the primary applicant has fulfilled the 6-month annual residency requirement for 5 years, they can obtain permanent residency status. Their spouse and children can also obtain permanent residency status simultaneously, provided they have no criminal record.
