Families preparing a UK student visa application usually focus on the amount. It is the wrong half of the requirement. The Home Office is not only asking whether the money exists. It is asking how long it has been there, and a balance that dipped for one day breaks the whole thing.
The rule in one paragraph
The required funds must sit in an eligible account for 28 consecutive days, and the balance must not fall below the required amount on any single day in that period. The closing date of the statement must be no more than 31 days before you submit the online application.
Twenty-eight consecutive days, not twenty-eight days in total. One transaction that takes the balance below the threshold, even briefly, restarts the count.
Two dates matter and people confuse them. The 28 days is a window that must be unbroken. The 31 days is how stale the evidence is allowed to be by the time you apply.
What that looks like on a calendar
Take an application submitted on 15 July. The statement's closing balance must be dated no earlier than 14 June, because that is 31 days back. Counting 28 days backwards from that closing date, the account must have held the full amount every day.
In practice this means the money should be in place roughly six weeks before you intend to apply, not one week. And it needs to be set aside in a way that keeps the balance above the threshold for every day of the window.
How much
The requirement has two parts: the outstanding tuition for the first year as stated on your CAS, plus living costs for up to nine months.
| Where you study | Per month | Nine months |
|---|---|---|
| In London | GBP 1,529 | GBP 13,761 |
| Outside London | GBP 1,171 | GBP 10,539 |
A course shorter than nine months is calculated on its actual length. And the London rate depends on where the institution is, not where you will live: several well known universities sit outside Greater London even though students commute in.
An important caution on figures. More than one set of amounts is in circulation. As of September 2026 the rates are GBP 1,529 a month in London and GBP 1,171 outside London. Under the published Immigration Rules changes these rise to GBP 1,570 and GBP 1,203 from 30 November 2026. Check on gov.uk which set applies to your application date. Older rates still appear on pages that have not been updated. Sources: UK Home Office Appendix Finance and Appendix Student, and current published guidance; read September 2026. Rules and amounts change. This is not immigration advice.
Where applications actually fail
- A dip mid-window. A standing order, a card payment, an exchange rate movement on a foreign currency account. The balance is checked on every day, not the first and last.
- A statement printed too early. A clean 28-day stretch from three months ago does not count. The closing date has to fall inside the 31-day window.
- A statement printed before the window closes. Money goes in, a statement is pulled two weeks later, and the application waits. That document shows fourteen days, not twenty-eight, however long the money then stays put.
- Whose name the money sits in. Each accepted arrangement carries its own documentary requirements, and a personal account, a parent account and a legal guardian account do not ask for the same paperwork. Saying the money is in the family is not sufficient on its own.
- The wrong kind of asset. Property, shares and funds cannot themselves serve as financial evidence, and cryptocurrency is not among the accepted forms. The account used has to meet the characteristics set out in the rules, with the required amount immediately accessible.
When the rule bends, and why that does not help you
Something worth saying plainly, because applicants raise it and advisers usually avoid it. The rules are written clearly, but decisions are made by caseworkers, and outcomes are not perfectly uniform.
Take company accounts. The rules set out clearly which forms of financial evidence are accepted. Someone hears that another application went differently and concludes the rule is softer than it looks. One application being decided as an exception does not make the same approach safe for yours.
It is not softer. It is inconsistently applied, and those are different things.
A refusal on financial grounds is not a simple delay. Depending on the circumstances and the grounds given, you may need to build the financial evidence again and submit a fresh application. If the course starts in September and the refusal lands in July, that timeline may not exist. The place can go, the deposit can go with it, and the year is lost.
So the advice is built on what the rule says rather than on what someone got away with. Not to make the process harder than it is, but because the downside is not symmetrical. Following the rule costs you some planning. Not following it can cost you the year.
Where I come into this
The financial requirement is a documentation problem rather than a wealth problem. Most families who are refused could afford the course. They moved the money at the wrong time, or moved it once too often during the window.
What I look at is the calendar: when the CAS arrives, when the money needs to be in place, and when the application can safely be submitted. Those three dates depend on each other. Move one and the other two move with it, which is why they need settling months before anyone pulls a bank statement.
Burcu Dedeoglu
International education and career strategy · Dublin
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