The Retirement Route Is Still in the Rules, and Every Paragraph of It Reads DELETED
There is no way to move to the United Kingdom on a pension. The country once had a category for it - retired persons of independent means, at paragraphs 263 to 270 of Part 7 of the Immigration Rules, with its own provisions for partners and children - and it was closed in 2008. What is unusual is how it was closed. The headings are all still printed in Part 7 today, in the same order, each followed by the single word DELETED: the requirements, the grant, the refusal, the extension, the indefinite leave, and the whole family block at paragraphs 271 to 273E. A reader searching the Rules for retirement finds the route's skeleton and has to notice that every bone of it is empty. Nothing replaced it. The index of Parts and Appendices the Home Office publishes lists more than a hundred routes and none of them admits a person on the basis of pension income, savings or private means, so an older person wanting to live in the United Kingdom reaches it, if at all, through family, through work, through ancestry or through the long residence of a stay that began some other way.
At a glance
- Retirement or private means route
- None. Paragraphs 263 to 270 of Part 7 of the Immigration Rules, which held the retired persons of independent means category, each read DELETED
Read in Part 7 as published by the Home Office on 10 October 2026. The headings survive above the deleted paragraphs.
- Family of a retired person of independent means
- None. Paragraphs 271 to 273E of Part 7, covering partners and children of a retired person of independent means, also read DELETED
The same Part, immediately after the main block.
- Replacement route
- None in the Home Office's own index of the Immigration Rules, which lists no appendix for retirement, pension income, private means or passive income
The index page at gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules, read on 10 October 2026, listing every Part and Appendix of the Rules.
- Nearest routes an older applicant can use
- Appendix FM as the partner or adult dependent relative of a settled person, Appendix UK Ancestry for a Commonwealth citizen with a UK-born grandparent, or Appendix Long Residence after 10 years lawfully in the UK
All three are listed in the Home Office index of the Rules. None of them is open on the basis of income or capital alone.
- Age-related concession anywhere in the entry rules
- Only an exemption, not a route: Appendix FM exempts a partner aged 65 or over from the English language requirement at E-ECP.4.2(a)
Appendix FM, read for the residency-marriage record. It eases a route that already requires a British or settled partner.
In detail
A closed route that was never cleared away
Part 7 of the Immigration Rules is where the old categories went. Retired persons of independent means sits there between special vouchers and long residence, with its headings intact and its paragraphs emptied. The same treatment has been given to most of Part 6A, where Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) and Tier 1 (General) survive as headings over the word DELETED. This is worth knowing before reading any part of the Rules: a heading is not a route, and the Home Office's practice is to hollow paragraphs rather than remove them. It also means that guidance written before 2008, and the many pages that still copy it, describe a category that has had no content for eighteen years.
What an older migrant actually has
The honest answer is that the United Kingdom does not admit people because they can support themselves. The routes an older applicant can use all require something other than money: a British or settled partner under Appendix FM, a UK-born grandparent and the intention to work under Appendix UK Ancestry, a sponsored job, or ten years already lawfully spent in the country under Appendix Long Residence. Appendix FM's adult dependent relative route exists but runs the other way - it is for a person who needs long-term personal care that cannot be obtained in their own country, sponsored by a relative here, and it is about dependency rather than independence.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«### Requirements for leave to enter the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 263\. DELETED ### Leave to enter as a retired person of independent means 264\. DELETED ### Refusal of leave to enter as a retired person of independent means 265\. DELETED ## Requirements for an extension of stay as a retired person of independent means, Show 1. 266\. DELETED ### Extension of stay as a retired person of independent means 1. 266A. DELETED 1. 266C. DELETED 1. 266D.DELETED 1. 266E. DELETED 1. 267\. DELETED ### Refusal of extension of stay as a retired person of independent means 1. 268\. DELETED ### Indefinite leave to remain for a retired person of independent means 1. 269\. DELETED ### Refusal of indefinite leave to remain for a retired person of independent means 1. 270\. DELETED»The whole of the retirement category as the Rules print it today: nine headings and nine deletions. The backslashes and list numbers are the published page's markup and are left as printed. This is the evidence for the absence, and it is better evidence than a route's simply not being mentioned.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The department that lays the Immigration Rules before Parliament under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 and publishes them on gov.uk. The Rules - HC 395 as amended - are the operative law of almost every immigration route: the Acts set the framework and delegate, and what a person must actually satisfy is in an appendix. The consolidated appendices are served one per page under gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules, with an index page listing every Part and Appendix with a one-line description of each, which is the only published closed list of the routes that exist. Changes are made by a statement of changes laid before Parliament, and those are collected at gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: No appendix page carries a version date or an in-force date on its face. The only way to date the text is the statement of changes collection, which gives the most recent statement laid but not which appendix it touched, so a citation to an appendix can be dated only to "the consolidation current at or after HC <n> of <date>". The Rules are not enacted: Parliament may disapprove a statement but does not pass it, so this is a department publishing its own rules and the site is both the issuer and the only publisher of the consolidated text - there is no independent consolidation to check it against. A closed route is hollowed rather than removed: the headings for Tier 1 (Investor), Tier 1 (General) and retired persons of independent means still stand above paragraphs reading DELETED, so the presence of a heading proves nothing. It is not a source for departmental guidance, for fees, for sponsor licensing decisions or for the lists of endorsing bodies, approved tests and designated institutions that the Rules make load-bearing and publish elsewhere.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«### Requirements for leave to enter or remain as the partners of a person with limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 1. 271\. DELETED ### Leave to enter as the partner of a person with limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 1. 272\. DELETED ### Refusal of leave to enter as the partner of a person with limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 1. 273\. DELETED ### Requirements for extension of stay as the partner of a person who has or has had leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 1. 273A. DELETED ### Extension of stay as the partner of a person who has or has had leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 1. 273B. DELETED ### Refusal of extension of stay as the partner of a person who has or has had leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom as a retired person of independent means 1. 273C. DELETED»The family provisions that depended on the category, deleted with it. Nothing in Part 7 lets a dependant of a retired person be admitted, because there is no retired person for them to depend on.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The department that lays the Immigration Rules before Parliament under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 and publishes them on gov.uk. The Rules - HC 395 as amended - are the operative law of almost every immigration route: the Acts set the framework and delegate, and what a person must actually satisfy is in an appendix. The consolidated appendices are served one per page under gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules, with an index page listing every Part and Appendix with a one-line description of each, which is the only published closed list of the routes that exist. Changes are made by a statement of changes laid before Parliament, and those are collected at gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: No appendix page carries a version date or an in-force date on its face. The only way to date the text is the statement of changes collection, which gives the most recent statement laid but not which appendix it touched, so a citation to an appendix can be dated only to "the consolidation current at or after HC <n> of <date>". The Rules are not enacted: Parliament may disapprove a statement but does not pass it, so this is a department publishing its own rules and the site is both the issuer and the only publisher of the consolidated text - there is no independent consolidation to check it against. A closed route is hollowed rather than removed: the headings for Tier 1 (Investor), Tier 1 (General) and retired persons of independent means still stand above paragraphs reading DELETED, so the presence of a heading proves nothing. It is not a source for departmental guidance, for fees, for sponsor licensing decisions or for the lists of endorsing bodies, approved tests and designated institutions that the Rules make load-bearing and publish elsewhere.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«The Long Residence route is for a person who has lived in the UK lawfully and continuously for 10 years or more. The person can count time with permission on most routes towards the 10 year qualifying period.»Quoted to show what the index does when a route exists: it names it and describes it in a sentence. The same index contains no such sentence for retirement, pensions, private means or passive income, which is what makes the absence a reading rather than an inference.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The department that lays the Immigration Rules before Parliament under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 and publishes them on gov.uk. The Rules - HC 395 as amended - are the operative law of almost every immigration route: the Acts set the framework and delegate, and what a person must actually satisfy is in an appendix. The consolidated appendices are served one per page under gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules, with an index page listing every Part and Appendix with a one-line description of each, which is the only published closed list of the routes that exist. Changes are made by a statement of changes laid before Parliament, and those are collected at gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: No appendix page carries a version date or an in-force date on its face. The only way to date the text is the statement of changes collection, which gives the most recent statement laid but not which appendix it touched, so a citation to an appendix can be dated only to "the consolidation current at or after HC <n> of <date>". The Rules are not enacted: Parliament may disapprove a statement but does not pass it, so this is a department publishing its own rules and the site is both the issuer and the only publisher of the consolidated text - there is no independent consolidation to check it against. A closed route is hollowed rather than removed: the headings for Tier 1 (Investor), Tier 1 (General) and retired persons of independent means still stand above paragraphs reading DELETED, so the presence of a heading proves nothing. It is not a source for departmental guidance, for fees, for sponsor licensing decisions or for the lists of endorsing bodies, approved tests and designated institutions that the Rules make load-bearing and publish elsewhere.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This record states an absence, and the absence is bounded by two documents: Part 7 of the Immigration Rules as published on gov.uk, read on 10 October 2026, and the Home Office's own index of the Parts and Appendices of the Rules, read on 10 October 2026. Both are named so a reader can check them.
It is not a claim that every appendix was read. It is a claim that the index that lists them names no route for a person living on pension income, savings or private means, and that the one category the Rules ever had for that purpose is printed as deleted.
The date the retirement category closed is not quoted here. The Rules carry no commencement note for a deletion, and the statement of changes that made it has not been read.
Tax treatment of a foreign pension is a separate question and is not covered by this record. See the tax-residency record for how residence itself is decided.
- issuesImmigration Rules part 7: other categories
Home Office (UK Visas and Immigration)
About this source
The department that lays the Immigration Rules before Parliament under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 and publishes them on gov.uk. The Rules - HC 395 as amended - are the operative law of almost every immigration route: the Acts set the framework and delegate, and what a person must actually satisfy is in an appendix. The consolidated appendices are served one per page under gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules, with an index page listing every Part and Appendix with a one-line description of each, which is the only published closed list of the routes that exist. Changes are made by a statement of changes laid before Parliament, and those are collected at gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: No appendix page carries a version date or an in-force date on its face. The only way to date the text is the statement of changes collection, which gives the most recent statement laid but not which appendix it touched, so a citation to an appendix can be dated only to "the consolidation current at or after HC <n> of <date>". The Rules are not enacted: Parliament may disapprove a statement but does not pass it, so this is a department publishing its own rules and the site is both the issuer and the only publisher of the consolidated text - there is no independent consolidation to check it against. A closed route is hollowed rather than removed: the headings for Tier 1 (Investor), Tier 1 (General) and retired persons of independent means still stand above paragraphs reading DELETED, so the presence of a heading proves nothing. It is not a source for departmental guidance, for fees, for sponsor licensing decisions or for the lists of endorsing bodies, approved tests and designated institutions that the Rules make load-bearing and publish elsewhere.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
- issuesImmigration Rules (index of Parts and Appendices)
Home Office (UK Visas and Immigration)
About this source
The department that lays the Immigration Rules before Parliament under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 and publishes them on gov.uk. The Rules - HC 395 as amended - are the operative law of almost every immigration route: the Acts set the framework and delegate, and what a person must actually satisfy is in an appendix. The consolidated appendices are served one per page under gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules, with an index page listing every Part and Appendix with a one-line description of each, which is the only published closed list of the routes that exist. Changes are made by a statement of changes laid before Parliament, and those are collected at gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-rules-statement-of-changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: No appendix page carries a version date or an in-force date on its face. The only way to date the text is the statement of changes collection, which gives the most recent statement laid but not which appendix it touched, so a citation to an appendix can be dated only to "the consolidation current at or after HC <n> of <date>". The Rules are not enacted: Parliament may disapprove a statement but does not pass it, so this is a department publishing its own rules and the site is both the issuer and the only publisher of the consolidated text - there is no independent consolidation to check it against. A closed route is hollowed rather than removed: the headings for Tier 1 (Investor), Tier 1 (General) and retired persons of independent means still stand above paragraphs reading DELETED, so the presence of a heading proves nothing. It is not a source for departmental guidance, for fees, for sponsor licensing decisions or for the lists of endorsing bodies, approved tests and designated institutions that the Rules make load-bearing and publish elsewhere.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source