Financial Documents: Bank Statements, Payslips, P60

Where the Requirements Come From

For a family visa as a partner, the financial evidence is not a matter of judgement. It is written down, in Appendix FM-SE of the Immigration Rules, which is titled “family members: specified evidence”. The Home Office also publishes the caseworker guidance on the minimum income requirement, which is how decision-makers are told to apply it.

Those two documents are the reason this guide is shorter on some points than checklists you may have seen. Longer lists circulate, and they add documents the rules do not ask for. The published guidance describes evidential flexibility, not a trap: where a document is missing or in the wrong format the decision-maker may write and ask for it within a reasonable deadline, and may grant despite minor evidential problems, though not where specified evidence is missing entirely.

The income requirement itself is a gross annual income of £29,000 for applications made on or after 11 April 2024. A transitional tier of £18,600, with additions for children, applies to people extending who first applied before that date. See GOV.UK on proving your income.

Other routes have their own rules. A Skilled Worker application is not covered by Appendix FM-SE. Its financial evidence is the £1,270 held for 28 days, unless the sponsor certifies maintenance or the applicant has been in the UK for 12 months.

Bank Statements

Appendix FM-SE, paragraph 1(a), says a bank statement must:

• Be from a financial institution to which Appendix Finance applies
• For a personal bank statement, be only in the name of the sponsor, the applicant, or both, as appropriate
• Cover the period specified for the source relied on
• Be on official bank stationery, or be an electronic statement that is either accompanied by a letter from the bank on its headed stationery confirming the documents are authentic, or that bears the official stamp of the issuing bank on every page

That last point is the one most often got wrong. A stamp is not a way of making an electronic statement look more credible; for an electronic statement it is one of the two ways of meeting the rule.

Paragraph 1(aa) allows alternatives: a building society statement or pass book, a letter from the applicant's bank or building society, or a letter from a regulated financial institution, so long as the same conditions are met. A pass book must show the account number, the building society's name and logo, and the transaction and balance information. A letter must be on headed stationery and show the account number, the date of the letter, the institution's name and logo, and the same transaction information.

The period the statements cover follows the source. For salaried employment, paragraph 2(c) asks for personal bank statements corresponding to the same period as the payslips, showing the salary paid into an account in the name of the person, or of that person and their partner jointly. For cash savings, paragraph 11 asks for statements covering the 6 months before the date of application.

Payslips

Appendix FM-SE, paragraph 1(bb), says payslips must be formal payslips issued by the employer and showing the employer's name, or be accompanied by a letter from the employer on the employer's headed paper and signed by a senior official confirming the payslips are authentic.

That is the whole of the format rule. The appendix does not require the payslip to carry your National Insurance number, the employer's PAYE reference, or the employer's address. Digital payslips from a payroll system are payslips issued by the employer.

How many are needed depends on the sponsor's history:

• Payslips covering the 6 months before the date of application, where the person has been employed by their current employer for at least 6 months. This is what the caseworker guidance calls Category A.
• Payslips for any period of salaried employment in the 12 months before the date of application, where the person has been with their current employer for less than 6 months, or has been there 6 months but does not rely on the first route. That is Category B.

The Employer's Letter

Paragraph 2(b) specifies exactly four things the letter from the employer who issued the payslips must confirm:

• The person's employment and gross annual salary
• The length of their employment
• The period over which they have been or were paid the level of salary relied on in the application
• The type of employment: permanent, fixed-term contract, or agency

The appendix does not set out a required signatory, a required job title for the signatory, or contact details. It does require, at paragraph 1(l), that where evidence relates to a period ending with the date of application, that evidence or its most recently dated part must be dated no earlier than 28 days before the date of application.

Paragraph 2A(ii) says an applicant may also submit a signed contract of employment, and that if they do not, the decision-maker may still grant the application if otherwise satisfied the requirements are met.

What Counts as Income

Paragraph 18 governs how salaried income is calculated, and two parts of it are worth knowing because they are commonly stated backwards.

• Overtime, commission and bonuses do count. Paragraph 18(b) counts overtime, payments to cover travel time, commission-based pay and bonuses — including tips and gratuities paid through a tronc scheme registered with HMRC — where they were received in the relevant period of employment or self-employment relied on. For someone in salaried employment at the date of application, paragraph 18(bb) sets the amount that may be added as the annual equivalent of their average gross monthly income from those sources in the 6 months before the application.
• Allowances are capped. Basic pay, skills-based allowances and UK location-based allowances count if they are contractual, but where those allowances make up more than 30% of total salary, only the amount up to 30% is counted.
• Travel and relocation payments do not count. Paragraph 18(c) excludes payments relating to the costs of travel, relocation, subsistence or accommodation, and payments towards the costs of living overseas.

P60

A P60 is issued by an employer after the end of the tax year on 5 April, and shows total taxable pay, tax deducted, National Insurance contributions, the employer's PAYE reference and your National Insurance number. An employer must give it to you by 31 May.

Under paragraph 2A(i) of Appendix FM-SE, an applicant may submit the P60 for the relevant period of employment in addition to the payslips and bank statements. If they do not, the decision-maker may grant the application if otherwise satisfied the requirements are met, and may request it under the evidential flexibility provision. A P60 is therefore useful corroboration, not a substitute for payslips and not itself a specified requirement.

For settlement on the family route, the same financial requirement applies, with one change: the Rules say that in applying the savings provision at settlement, the words “2.5 times” are disregarded.

Self-Employment

Self-employment is the part of Appendix FM-SE most often summarised wrongly, in two specific ways.

• The figure is gross taxable profits, not net profit. Paragraph 19(b) says that for a sole trader, partnership or franchise, the income is the gross taxable profits from their share of the business in the relevant financial year, not including any deductible allowances, expenses or liabilities applied to those profits to establish the final tax liability.
• Cash savings cannot be combined with self-employment income. The published caseworker guidance says cash savings cannot be combined with self-employment income, or with income from employment as a director or employee of a specified limited company in the UK, under either Category F or Category G. Savings can be combined with salaried and non-salaried employment under Category A, with part one of Category B, with non-employment income under Category C, and with pension income under Category E.

An accountant's certificate is not optional where the business does not produce audited accounts. Appendix FM-SE requires, in that case, unaudited accounts for the last full financial year together with an accountant's certificate of confirmation from an accountant who is a member of a UK Recognised Supervisory Body as defined in the Companies Act 2006, or of one of the named professional bodies: 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.

The self-assessment Statement of Account (SA300 or SA302) sets the relevant financial year for a sole trader; the Company Tax Return CT600 does so for a director of a specified limited company. Our self-employment income guide goes through the document list in full.

Cash Savings

The savings route is a formula, not a judgement. Under Appendix FM, savings must be £16,000 plus an additional amount equivalent to 2.5 times the difference between the gross annual income from the permitted sources and the income required. At £29,000 with no other income at all, that is £16,000 plus 2.5 times £29,000, so £88,500.

Appendix FM-SE paragraphs 11 and 11A then say:

• Personal bank statements must show that at least the level of savings relied on has been held in an account in the name of the person, or of the person and their partner jointly, throughout the 6 months before the date of application.
• The account holder must make a declaration of the source of the savings.
• The savings may be in any current, deposit or investment account with a regulated institution, provided the money can be accessed immediately, with or without a penalty for withdrawing without notice.
• Money transferred from investments, stocks, shares, bonds or trust funds within those 6 months can count, provided the funds were owned and controlled for the full 6 months and the ownership, value and transfer are evidenced by a portfolio report or similar from a regulated financial institution.
• Net proceeds from the sale of a dwelling, other building or land within those 6 months can count, subject to conditions on ownership, shares, and repayment of any mortgage, taxes and professional fees.
• Savings must be held in cash, and all income and savings must be lawfully derived.

At settlement the Rules disregard the words “2.5 times” in the savings provision, which changes the arithmetic substantially. Our cash savings guide works through the calculation, and joint financial evidence covers whose name the money can be in.

Documents from Outside the UK

• Translation. Paragraph 1(j) requires the original document and a full translation that can be independently verified. The translation must be dated and include confirmation that it is an accurate translation, the full name and signature of the translator or an authorised official of the translation company, and the translator or company's contact details. For an application for leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain, it must also be certified by a qualified translator with details of their credentials. See our translation guide.
• Currency. Foreign currency is converted using the rate specified in Appendix Finance: the spot exchange rate on www.oanda.com for the date of the application, with the monthly FCDO Consular Exchange Rate used for the small number of currencies OANDA does not carry.
• Gross and net. Paragraph 1(k) says that where the gross amount of income cannot be properly evidenced, the net amount is counted, including towards a gross income requirement.

When a Document Is Missing

Paragraph D of Appendix FM-SE, and the caseworker guidance built on it, set out what happens when the evidence is incomplete. Where an applicant has submitted a sequence of documents with one omitted, such as a missing bank statement from a run, or a document in the wrong format, or a copy rather than an original, or a document that does not contain all the specified information, or has not submitted a specified document at all, the decision-maker may write and request it, to be received within a reasonable timescale set in the request.

The guidance also says a decision-maker will not make that request where addressing the error will not lead to a grant because the application will be refused for other reasons; that an application may be granted exceptionally where missing information is verifiable from other documents submitted, the issuing organisation's website, or the regulator's website; and that there is discretion where a document cannot be supplied because it is not issued in a particular country or has been permanently lost.

Two practical points follow. Consistency between documents matters, because the figures are cross-checked: the salary on the payslips, the figure in the employer's letter and the credits in the bank statements describe the same employment. And a document the Immigration Rules do not specify is not a requirement, however often a checklist elsewhere lists it.

This site sets out the published rules and does not assess whether any particular set of documents meets them. Advice on an individual application has to come from someone regulated to give it — see our note on doing it yourself or using a solicitor.

Questions and answers