Britain’s Chancellor, John Healey, is considering whether to launch a new residence route for wealthy foreign investors, according to Bloomberg. The route would resemble the Tier 1 (Investor) visa, which the Home Office closed in 2022.
Healey became Chancellor on July 20, the day Andy Burnham became Prime Minister. His first Budget is due on October 28.
Two published designs set out how such a route could work. One is from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a think tank, and the other from Foreign Investors for Britain (FIFB), which describes itself as an advisory group of investors and businesses.
IPPR’s £5 Million Fund Route Would Offer No Faster Settlement
IPPR published its design on July 9. Each investor would put £5 million into a pooled fund overseen by the British Business Bank, the state-owned development bank.
The money would arrive in stages: £3 million on entry, £1 million when the visa is renewed after two and a half years, and £1 million after five years.
Under the design, the fund would back innovative and high-growth sectors. IPPR argues that the old visa “largely channelled funds into low-risk assets with limited economic impact.”
Investors would earn a return set “significantly lower than market rates,” and the full report adds that the return could be zero. IPPR suggests a minimum period for the investment, with ten years as its example, and says penalties for early withdrawal could enforce it.
There would be “no fast track to citizenship,” according to the think tank. Applicants would have to meet the standard residence rules for settlement, the UK’s term for permanent residence.
IPPR wants an annual cap on grants and gives 100 to 150 a year, not counting dependents, as its example. The report also calls for a Home Office due diligence unit, paid for from visa fees.
Applicants from countries that the Treasury lists as high risk for money laundering would be barred, and IPPR says the ban should also cover Russia.
FIFB Pairs £2.5 Million With a Flat Tax
FIFB set out its design, the Global Investor Visa, in a policy paper dated October 2026.
Investors would put at least £2.5 million into qualifying UK investments within three months of receiving the visa.
Each would then pay a flat £200,000 a year in tax to HM Revenue and Customs for up to 15 tax years. In written evidence to Parliament in January, FIFB described the charge as an option that covers UK income tax and capital gains tax on foreign income and gains.
The design would also exempt foreign assets from UK inheritance tax while the investor meets the visa’s terms. FIFB would open the route to new arrivals and to some non-doms, UK residents who were taxed under the non-domicile rules in place before 2025.
Investors would have a path to settlement (indefinite leave to remain) under the immigration rules in place when they apply for it.
FIFB estimates that the route would bring more than £225 billion of inward investment over ten years. Its January evidence called the same figure “ten-year revenue.”
FIFB, led by chief executive Leslie MacLeod-Miller, made its case for an investor visa at a summit it hosted at the House of Lords in November last year.
The Idea’s Path Through Government
Keir Starmer’s government was considering a visa for foreigners who invest in strategic sectors such as artificial intelligence and clean energy.
In May this year, the Office for Investment, a unit housed under 10 Downing Street, had sent wealth advisers proposals for an invite-only £5 million route that excluded property.
The Cabinet Office put the plan to outside advisers at a private meeting on June 10. At the time, the Treasury and the Home Office were unconvinced, and Treasury officials doubted that the route would do much for growth.
Peter Kyle, then Business Secretary, was the idea’s main champion inside government. He left the post on July 20, when Burnham took office.
Why Britain Closed the Tier 1 Visa
The Home Office closed the Tier 1 (Investor) route to new applicants in February 2022. In its explanatory memorandum, the government judged the route’s economic benefit to the UK “small.”
That benefit did not offset concerns that the route was “vulnerable to exploitation” by people seeking “to transfer illicitly obtained wealth” to the UK, the memorandum adds.
The old route’s last minimum was £2 million. Investors who put in £5 million could apply for settlement after three years, and those who put in £10 million after two.
A Home Office review, ordered in 2018, examined the 6,312 investors and adult dependents who received the visa between 2008 and 2015. The Home Office found “inherent difficulties in an investment-based immigration route based on passive wealth, both in terms of security and economic value.”
Its statement to Parliament adds that the review’s lessons formed “a significant part of [the] evidence base” for closing the route.
Investors already on the old route must apply for settlement before a deadline in February 2028.
