Investor Visa UK

Is the UK Investor visa coming back?

By Amer Zaman

on August 7, 2025

Read Time: 8 Minutes

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In mid-May 2025, intriguing reports filtered through that potentially indicated a big change in the UK Government’s efforts to attract and retain wealth in the country.

First reported by Bloomberg, ministers are apparently drawing up plans for investor visas for high-net-worth individuals who are prepared to invest large sums of money in the UK.

The reports so far suggest that if any such new investment visa is launched, it will be aimed at people willing to fund certain industries perceived by Sir Keir Starmer’s Government as being of strategic importance to the UK. Such sectors could include artificial intelligence, clean energy, and life sciences.

But didn’t the UK already previously have an Investor visa?

Yes, it did. The Tier 1 Investor visa route had offered a fast-track pathway to UK residency for investors from overseas who were prepared to spend a minimum of £2 million.

Applicants for this visa were required to invest in share capital or loan capital in active and trading companies registered in the UK.

However, in February 2022, the then-Conservative Government shut down the route with immediate effect, amid what the Home Office described at the time as “security concerns, including people acquiring their wealth illegitimately and being associated with wider corruption.”

So, why would the Government want to bring the Investor visa back?

If reports are to be believed, this isn’t a case of bringing the old Investor visa back. Instead, the idea – presuming the go-ahead is eventually given – is seemingly to put in place a new scheme aimed at encouraging investment into certain strategic industries. The Starmer administration has recently tightened restrictions on work visa routes to the UK, while also coming under pressure over its tax reforms. So, it appears that ministers are attracted to the idea of reintroducing an investment visa to help bring in targeted foreign capital.

Labour’s non-domiciled tax changes may have helped spur on the new Investor visa plans

Concerns have intensified lately about the UK having become a less attractive destination for wealthy foreigners in light of the Labour Government’s scrapping of “non-dom” tax status.

• This change means that all longer-term UK residents, including those not permanently domiciled in the country, will face UK tax on their worldwide income and gains as they arise, rather than – as had been the case for some non-doms – only when the income and gains are brought into the UK.
• However, there are worries in some quarters that the reforms may have helped drive an exodus of millionaires and billionaires from the UK.
• The Sunday Times’ recently published Rich List for 2025 indicated that for the second consecutive year, there had been a fall in the number of UK-based billionaires, from 165 in 2024 to 156 this year. This is the steepest recorded decline in the 37 years the newspaper’s List has been running.
• Such a development comes alongside other recent data suggesting more than 10,000 millionaires left the UK during 2024 – a 157% rise in departures compared to the previous year.
• A recent report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) estimated that if a quarter of non-domiciled remittance basis taxpayers left the UK due to the changes to the foreign income and gains regime, the Treasury’s net gain would be zero.
• As for if 50% of non-dom taxpayers were to leave the UK, the Treasury would reportedly incur net losses of £2.4 billion in the first year of the tax changes.

A new UK Investor visa, then – particularly if it is focused on strategic sectors – could make a certain amount of sense as a complement to the Government’s broader industrial strategy.

If such a scheme is designed well, it could send an important message about the UK’s openness to credible, long-term investors. The revamped programme could retain the best of the “old” Tier 1 scheme, while putting in place the necessary safeguards the previous visa category lacked.

What could a new UK Investor visa look like?

At the time of typing, we are largely dependent on media reports to get a sense of what a “new” Investor visa for the UK could look like, in terms of such factors as its eligibility criteria and protections against risks like corruption.

Nonetheless, our specialists in UK immigration law at Cranbrook Legal would not be surprised to see the below elements incorporated into any such revamped investment visa category:

• Investment criteria that is specific to each given sector

An investment that a candidate for this visa wishes to make, may not qualify them for this new visa unless it satisfies highly specific criteria.

By this, we mean there will surely be a need for candidates to provide a meaningful and direct contribution to strategic infrastructure, innovation, and green growth in the UK.

It is likely that the given fund or project put forward by the visa applicant would need to be pre-approved. The likes of early-stage venture capital, scale-up enterprises, and research and development (R&D) initiatives in priority sectors could stand a strong chance of qualifying for this new visa.

• Oversight and due diligence by independent bodies

If a new investment visa is to see the light of day in the UK, it will also probably be crucial for the application process to place a strong emphasis on thorough checks of where the applicant’s wealth comes from, their business background, and the intentions behind their investment.

Independent entities could be given the role of scrutinising the applicant’s compliance, as well as assessing the likely economic impact of their funding.

• A need for visa holders to be meaningfully resident in the UK

It also seems a relatively obvious move for ministers to give investment visa applicants incentives to establish a genuine and meaningful presence in the UK.

To put it another way: any new investor visa scheme would surely be designed to prevent its use as a mere speculative or passive route to residency.

Various steps could be taken to help achieve this. For example, applicants could be subject to minimum thresholds in terms of the amount of time they are physically present in the UK, and they may be expected to engage with UK-based enterprises.

• Passive financial instruments not being accepted as qualifying investments

It seems probable, too, that in the event of an overhauled investment visa scheme coming to pass, the Government would not accept forms of “investment” that do not bring a clear benefit to the broader public.

Obvious examples of such low-impact assets that would likely be excluded from the list of eligible investments, include government bonds and property purchases.

Place your faith in Cranbrook Legal’s project-managed support for your move to the UK

As our experts in UK immigration law have written about previously, the withdrawal of the Tier 1 Investor visa scheme in February 2022 has left many high-net-worth foreign nationals with a lack of obvious means by which they may relocate to the UK.

However, while we await further news on any potential return of an investment-specific visa category, some potential alternative pathways do still exist. For example, there is our own Skilled Worker visa by investment programme at Cranbrook Legal.

Ultimately, the right route to the UK for you will depend greatly on your particular circumstances, needs, and aspirations.

To discuss these aspects in detail with our award-winning experts in UK immigration law, please fill in and submit our online form to request a free consultation, or give us a call on 0208 215 0053.