Home Office (UK Visas and Immigration)

Issues the instrument

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.

An instrument published here takes legal effect on publication. This is where the law becomes the law.

www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules

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.

Re-check every

45 days

Publication rhythm

A statement of changes to the Immigration Rules is laid several times a year, typically with a few weeks between laying and effect; the consolidated appendices on gov.uk are rewritten when one takes effect.

Re-check triggers

a new statement of changes appearing in the gov.uk collection · a change to Appendix Visitor: Visa National list or Appendix ETA National List · a change to the financial requirement in Appendix FM or the maintenance figures in Appendix Student · 26 March 2027, when LR 13.1 of Appendix Long Residence raises the settlement English standard from B1 to B2 · a new appendix appearing in, or an appendix disappearing from, the index of Parts and Appendices

Home Office (UK Visas and Immigration)

Cannot be cited for

Facts resting on this publisher · 10