Director Salary and Dividends for Spouse Visa Applications

If you draw a small salary and take the rest as dividends from your own limited company, the family visa financial requirement treats you as a special case. Paragraph 9 of Appendix FM-SE sets out which companies it applies to and exactly what has to be produced.

Checked 12 February 20269 min readWritten by the Rowan Editorial Team

Section: Costs, English & General
Reading time: 9 min
Last checked: 12 February 2026
Source: The published Immigration Rules and GOV.UK guidance, linked throughout this guide.
Rowan does not: Look at your own case, tell you which route to choose, or say what the Home Office will decide. This guide shows the published rules and where to read them.

In short

The test is at paragraph 9(a): you are a director or employee, shares are held by you, your partner or listed relatives, and any remaining shares are held by fewer than five other people.
Paragraph 9 replaces paragraph 2 (employment evidence) and paragraph 10(b) (dividend evidence). You cannot mix and match.
The evidence is company-level: CT600, Companies House registration, accounts, corporate bank statements, and one of three proofs the business is real.
Income is calculated from the last full financial year covered by the CT600, or an average of the last two.
It cannot be combined with cash savings, and its financial years cannot be mixed with ordinary self-employment years.
The role and the income must still be ongoing at the date of application.

Paragraph 9 of Appendix FM-SE covers income from employment and shares in a family or closely held UK limited company. It replaces the ordinary employment and dividend evidence rules with a longer, company-level list, and it brings the self-employment calculation rules with it — including the bar on combining with cash savings. This guide sets out the test, the documents, and how the income is counted.

Which Rule Applies to You

The rule is Appendix FM-SE of the Immigration Rules. Paragraph 9 opens by saying that for income from employment and shares in a limited company of the type at paragraph 9(a), the requirements of paragraph 9 apply in place of those in paragraph 2 (ordinary employment evidence) and paragraph 10(b) (ordinary dividend evidence).

Paragraph 9(a) defines the company. All three must be true:

the person is a director or employee of the company, or both, or of another company within the same group; and
shares are held, directly or indirectly, by the person, their partner, or a parent, grandparent, child, stepchild, grandchild, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece or first cousin of the person or their partner; and
any remaining shares are held, directly or indirectly, by fewer than five other people.

If your company does not meet that description — a listed company you happen to hold shares in, say — then the dividends are ordinary non-employment income under paragraph 10(b), and any salary is ordinary employment income under paragraph 2. Paragraph 10(b)(iv) requires those applicants to prove the point, by providing evidence that the company is not the paragraph 9(a) type — the latest annual return filed at Companies House will do.

The Company Documents

Paragraph 9(b) says all of the following must be provided:

Company Tax Return CT600 — a copy or print-out — for the last full financial year, plus evidence it has been filed with HMRC, such as an electronic or written acknowledgment
Evidence of registration with the Registrar of Companies at Companies House
Accounts for the last full financial year. Audited accounts if the company is required to produce them. If it is not, unaudited accounts and an accountant’s certificate of confirmation, from an accountant who is a member of a UK Recognised Supervisory Body under the Companies Act 2006, or of the Institute of Financial Accountants, the Association of Authorised Public Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the Association of International Accountants, or the Association of Accounting Technicians
Corporate or business bank statements covering the same 12-month period as the CT600
One of the following: a certificate of VAT registration and the VAT return for the last full financial year, confirming the registration number, where turnover exceeds the figure stated in the rule (paragraph 9(b)(vii)(1) is written as £79,000, or the threshold which applied during that financial year); proof of ownership or lease of business premises; or proof of registration with HMRC as an employer for PAYE and National Insurance, with the PAYE reference number and Accounts Office reference number, which may be a certified copy of the HMRC documentation

If You Take a Salary

Paragraph 9(c) adds, for a director or employee drawing a salary:

Payslips and P60 (if issued) covering the same period as the CT600
Personal bank statements covering the same 12-month period as the CT600, showing the salary paid into an account in the name of the person, or of the person and their partner jointly

If You Take Dividends

Paragraph 9(d) adds:

Dividend vouchers for all dividends declared in your favour during, or in respect of, the period covered by the CT600 — each showing the company’s and your details and your net dividend amount
Personal bank statements showing those dividends were paid into an account in your name, or in your and your partner’s names jointly

Note the word “all”. A missing voucher is a missing specified document, not a gap you can explain away with a bank line.

Proving It Is Still Going

Paragraph 19(a) requires evidence of ongoing activity at the date of application. Paragraph 9(e) sets out what serves: payslips or dividend vouchers and personal bank statements showing that, since the 12-month period covered by the CT600, salary or dividend income was still being paid into an account in your name or jointly with your partner. Alternatively, evidence of ongoing payment of business rates, business-related insurance premiums, or employer National Insurance contributions in relation to the company.

How the Income Is Calculated

Paragraph 13(j) says the provisions that apply to self-employment also apply to paragraph 9 income. That pulls in several rules at once:

Period. Paragraph 13(e) counts the gross income in the last full financial year, or as an average of the last two full financial years. Paragraph 19(e) says the financial year for paragraph 9 income is the period the CT600 covers.
No mixing of years. Paragraph 13(e) says the financial years used cannot be combined with financial years to which paragraph 9 applies, and the other way round. Ordinary self-employment income and company income are worked out on their own years.
No savings. Paragraph 13(f) says a person on this basis cannot combine their gross annual income with specified cash savings to meet the level required. This surprises people, and it is the single most consequential rule on this page.
What can be added. Paragraph 13(e) does let the total include salaried or non-salaried employment income of the person and of their partner (where the partner is in the UK with permission to work), specified non-employment income of either, and pension income of either, over the same financial year or years.

The threshold to reach is £29,000 for applications made on or after 11 April 2024, or the transitional £18,600 plus child additions for people who first applied under the family rules before that date. See our financial requirement guide.

A Small Salary and Large Dividends

Drawing a modest salary and taking the rest as dividends is an ordinary way to run a small company, and the Immigration Rules do not prohibit it: paragraph 9 is written on the assumption that both exist and specifies documents for each. What the rules require is that both streams be evidenced exactly as set out above, over the same CT600 period, and that both are still running at the date of application.

Two practical points follow from the documents themselves rather than from any Home Office policy:

Dividends can only lawfully be paid out of distributable profits. Because the CT600 and the accounts are both in the bundle, a dividend total that the accounts cannot support is visible on the face of the evidence.
The corporate bank statements, the personal bank statements, the vouchers and the payslips all cover the same 12 months. Figures that do not reconcile across them are visible for the same reason.

Directorships in More Than One Company

Nothing in paragraph 9 limits it to a single company, but the document list is per company: each one you rely on needs its own CT600, Companies House registration, accounts, corporate bank statements and third proof, and each dividend stream needs its own vouchers. The financial years also have to line up with the calculation rules above.

Next Steps

Start from the CT600 for the last full financial year and build everything around its dates: accounts for that year, corporate bank statements for those 12 months, payslips and vouchers for that period, personal bank statements for those 12 months, and then separate evidence that the salary or dividends have continued since. An accountant can produce most of it, but the certificate of confirmation for unaudited accounts must come from a member of one of the bodies the rule names.

Questions and answers

Do dividends count towards the family visa income requirement?

Yes, but how they are evidenced depends on the company. If the company is the type described at paragraph 9(a) of Appendix FM-SE — broadly a family or closely held company you are a director or employee of — paragraph 9 applies, and it replaces both the ordinary employment evidence rules at paragraph 2 and the ordinary dividend rules at paragraph 10(b). If it is any other company, the dividends are treated as ordinary non-employment income under paragraph 10(b).

Which companies does paragraph 9 catch?

Paragraph 9(a) defines it: a limited company based in the UK where the person is a director or an employee of the company, or both, or of another company in the same group; shares are held, directly or indirectly, by the person, their partner, or a parent, grandparent, child, stepchild, grandchild, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece or first cousin of either of them; and any remaining shares are held, directly or indirectly, by fewer than five other people. All three have to be true.

What documents does paragraph 9 require?

For the company: the Company Tax Return CT600 for the last full financial year with evidence it was filed with HMRC; evidence of registration at Companies House; audited accounts for that year if the company must produce them, or unaudited accounts plus an accountant's certificate of confirmation from a member of a listed professional body; corporate or business bank statements covering the same 12 months as the CT600; and one of a VAT registration certificate with the VAT return, proof of ownership or lease of business premises, or proof of registration with HMRC as an employer for PAYE and National Insurance. For salary: payslips and P60 if issued covering the CT600 period, and personal bank statements for the same 12 months. For dividends: dividend vouchers for every dividend declared in your favour in that period, and personal bank statements showing them arriving.

Can I combine company income with cash savings?

No. Paragraph 13(f) says a person whose income is calculated on the self-employment basis cannot combine it with specified savings to meet the level required, and paragraph 13(j) applies the self-employment provisions to income under paragraph 9. Paragraph 13(e) also says the financial years used for paragraph 9 income cannot be combined with financial years used for ordinary self-employment income.

Do I need to still be working at the company when I apply?

Yes. Paragraph 19(a) requires evidence of ongoing self-employment — and, where salaried income is also relied on or paragraph 9(c) applies, of ongoing employment — at the date of application. Paragraph 9(e) sets out what that evidence can be: payslips or dividend vouchers and personal bank statements covering the period since the CT600 year, or alternatively evidence of ongoing payment of business rates, business-related insurance premiums, or employer National Insurance contributions.

This guide is general information about published immigration rules. It is not advice about an individual application under s.82 Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and Rowan is not regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority. Immigration rules change several times a year. For advice on a particular situation, contact an adviser authorised by the Immigration Advice Authority or an immigration solicitor. Always check GOV.UK for the authoritative current rules.

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