Tier 4 General Student Guide to Your Money and Financial Evidence/Maintenance Documents

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1 Tier 4 General Student Guide to Your Money and Financial Evidence/Maintenance Documents Your money You need enough money to pay for your course fees and your living costs while in the UK. The Home Office refers to this as the maintenance requirements. Maintenance must be in the form of cash funds. You cannot use evidence of other types of finances such as shares, bonds or a pension fund. You also cannot use an overdraft facility or a credit card. The amount of money that you need to have for your maintenance will depend on: how long your course lasts AND where you will be studying in the UK Course fees You must have enough money to pay for the course fees for the first year of your course, or the entire course if it is less than one year long. If your CAS has been issued for further study on a course that you are already partway through, the 'first year of study' means the first year of this new period of study. The Home Office will use the details in your CAS to confirm how much money you need for your course fees. You should make sure that the information you enter on your application form matches the information on your CAS. If you do not need to pay any course fees to the University, your CAS will state that there are no fees due. For example, if you are applying to come to the UK as part of a 'study abroad' programme, and you have paid all of your course fees to your home institution, this will be confirmed in your CAS. Living costs You must have a fixed amount of money to cover your living costs. As you will be studying outside of London you will need to have 1,015 for each month of your course, up to 9,135 for a course lasting nine months or more (a maximum of 9 months). You should use the course start and end dates on your CAS to calculate the length of your course and therefore how many months' maintenance you will need. If the length of your course includes a part of a month, the number of months' maintenance that you need will be rounded up. Lower amount of money You can only show a lower amount of money if you are applying for leave to remain under the Tier 4 (Doctorate Extension Scheme); or if you are applying in the UK for leave to be a postgraduate doctor or dentist, or a student union sabbatical officer. In these instances, you only have to show living costs for 2 months. In all other cases you must show that you have the full amount of money required, as described above.

2 Deductions You can deduct the following from the total amount of money that you need as part of your immigration application: money that you have already paid to the University towards your course fees, and up to 1,265 that you have already paid to the University for your accommodation fees, if you will be living in university accommodation. You cannot deduct any advance payment for any other type of housing, nor can you adjust the amounts if you will have no housing costs, (for example if you will be living with a relative free of charge). Your CAS may include details of any money paid to the University. If not, you will need to provide an official receipt. It must be an original paper receipt confirming how much money you have paid towards your course fees and/or your accommodation fees. If you are a low-risk applicant, you should obtain the receipt, but you do not need to include it with your initial application. If the total amount that you are required to show the Home Office is more than the amount that you have paid to the University for course fees and for accommodation fees (up to a maximum of 1,265) then you must have the rest of the money required. Can a relative or friend pay my fees and living costs? Anyone can pay money direct to the University on your behalf, for example to pay your course fees or accommodation costs. However, any evidence of money that you submit in support of your Tier 4 application (for example bank statements) must be in your name or in your parent's / legal guardian's name (or names). You cannot use evidence of money held in any other person s name, even if you have their permission to do so. If someone who is not your parent or guardian is giving you money for your living costs, they will need to transfer the funds to your account (or to your parent or legal guardian's account), allowing enough time for you (or your parent or legal guardian) to hold the funds for at least 28 days and get evidence of this, before you apply for your Tier 4 visa. Evidence of Your money If you are a 'low-risk' applicant, you should obtain the evidence of your money in the format explained here, but you do not need to include it with your initial application. All other applicants must include this evidence with their application. Evidence of your money must meet specific requirements. If it does not, your immigration application is likely to be refused. If you have already paid money to the University for your course fees or accommodation, submit original paper receipts with your application as evidence of this, unless this information is included in your CAS. See Deductions for more information. As evidence of your money, use: personal bank or building society statements, or a building society passbook, or a certificate of deposit*, or

3 a letter from your bank, or a regulated financial institution, confirming your funds, or a letter from a regulated financial institution confirming that you have a loan that is provided by the national government, the state or regional government or a government sponsored student loan company, or that is part of an academic or educational loans scheme. Note: any other type of loan will not meet the Tier 4 requirements. If you wish to use such a loan you need to transfer the funds to an account in your name (or a parent's name) and use one of the other forms of evidence listed above. *A certificate of deposit is issued by a bank to confirm that the named person has deposited or invested a specific amount of money. Certificates of deposit are not listed as acceptable evidence in the Immigration Rules but they are included in paragraph 169 of the Tier 4 Policy Guidance, as long as they 'do not indicate that funds are frozen'. A certificate of deposit will be accepted if it meets all the following requirements: the certificate of deposit must have been issued within 31 days of the date of application at least 28 days must have elapsed between the date of the deposit and the date of issue of the certificate Check your financial documents carefully It is very important that your financial documents contain all of the required information, paragraph 1B, Appendix C of the Immigration Rules lists the information that must be included in any financial document that you use to support your application. Maintenance must be in the form of cash funds. You cannot use evidence of other types of finances, such as shares, bonds, or a pension fund. You also cannot use an overdraft facility or a credit card. Unless you are using a loan letter, your financial documents must show that the full amount of money that you need has been in the account for 28 consecutive days up to the date of the closing balance. This means that the account must not have dropped below the amount that you need to show at any time during the 28 day period. If it does your immigration application is likely to be refused. Furthermore, the final date of this 28 day period must not be more than 31 days old on the date that you submit your application. The statement must show your name or your parent s/legal guardian s name, the account number, the financial institution s name and logo and the amount of money available to you. If you are submitting a letter which confirms that you have a loan it must not be dated more than 6 months before the date on which you make your application. A bank account can be in your name or in your parent's or legal guardian's name, and it can be a joint account you hold with someone else. You can use more than one account if necessary, and you can use a combination of your account(s) and your parent's or legal guardian's account(s). However, if you are using evidence of a student, academic or educational loan, the loan must be in your name only. You can use an overseas bank account. However, if your funds are not in British pounds (GBP), you should convert the closing balance into GBP and write this sum on the document that you are using as evidence of your finances. The Home Office will use the OANDA website to convert currencies into GBP, so use this website to do your own conversions. If you use statements which have been printed from online, they must include all the standard required information and must also either be stamped on every page, or be accompanied by a

4 supporting letter from the bank or building society confirming that the statement is authentic. You cannot use mini-statements obtained from automatic teller machines (ATMs). An online statement may have a 'date of issue' that is later than the last transaction shown in the statement. An entry clearance officer or caseworker has the discretion to judge whether the balance is likely to have fallen between the last transaction and the date of issue, and whether this extrapolated lower balance would mean you do not meet the maintenance requirement. The guidance for Home Office staff says: Banks will often stamp electronic statements with a 'date of issue' stamp. You may accept this as the date of the closing balance but where there is a gap between the last transaction date and the date of issue stamp, you must consider the type of account and the frequency of transactions. For example, if the last transaction was two weeks before the date of issue stamp and the account is a savings account where transactions are infrequent, then you may accept that the balance will not have changed. If, however, the account is a current account where there are daily or weekly transactions, you must ask your senior caseworker for advice. Acceptable and unacceptable financial institutions Appendix P of the Immigration Rules lists of financial institutions in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, India, Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka that verify financial documents to the Home Office's satisfaction, and which can therefore be used in immigration applications. There are also lists of unacceptable institutions in Bangladesh, India, Iran, Pakistan and the Philippines. If you use documents from an unacceptable financial institution your application will be refused. It is always safest to use documents from an acceptable financial institution if possible. If you use documents from a financial institution that is not on either list (where both lists exist), or from a country that does not have such lists then the Home Office will verify financial documents on a case-by-case basis and may refuse your application if the outcome of such checks is not satisfactory. Using your parent(s)' or legal guardian(s)' funds If you wish to use a bank account in your parent's or guardian's name (or names), you must also include evidence of their relationship to you. (If you are a 'low-risk' applicant you should obtain this evidence, but you do not need to include it with your initial application.) This evidence of your relationship with your parent(s) or legal guardian(s) can be: your original birth certificate, or a notarised copy, showing the name of your parent(s) whose bank account you are using for your immigration application if you are adopted, the original certificate of adoption, or a notarised copy, showing your name and the name of your parent(s) whose bank account you are using for your immigration application if you have a legal guardian, an original court document, or notarised copy, which shows the name of your guardian(s) whose bank account you are using for your immigration application If you do not have any of the above, but you have a government-issued household register showing your name and your parent or parents' name(s), this option is not listed on the application form, nor in the Tier 4 policy guidance, but Home Office staff are instructed to accept it. You must also provide an original signed letter from your parent(s) or legal guardian(s), confirming the relationship between you, and confirming that they consent to the funds being available to you for study in the UK.

5 Official financial sponsors An official financial sponsor is defined in the Tier 4 policy guidance as: the UK government your home government the British Council any international organisation an international company (the Home Office has not defined 'international company' but it seems to mean a company with a trading presence (an office) in more than one country) any university an Independent School If you receive funding from any of these sources, you will need a letter from them confirming how much money they will contribute towards your course fees and maintenance. If your official financial sponsor is the University and we have included details of your financial sponsorship in your CAS, you do not need an additional letter. The letter must show: your name the name and contact details of the official financial sponsor the date of the letter the length of the sponsorship the amount of money the sponsor is giving to you, or a statement that all course fees and living costs will be covered. If you are a 'low-risk' applicant, you should obtain this letter and keep it safe, but you do not need to include it with your initial application. If the University is not covering all of your course fees and maintenance, you must be able to demonstrate that you have the rest of the money required. LINKS: Tier 4 Policy Guidance: Para 1B Appendix C of the Immigration Rules: OANDA: Appendix P of the Immigration Rules: (last updated 11/12/2017)