United KingdomOpen. No minimum investment; endorsement by a Home Office-approved endorsing body is required before applying. There is no UK golden visa.
You have a product that works in India and numbers that say it would work in Britain. Your decision: spend the next year chasing an endorsement, or keep growing at home and look again later. The Innovator Founder visa has no minimum investment — the old £50,000 and £200,000 figures are gone — but it has a harder gate. A Home Office-approved endorsing body must agree that your idea is new, viable and built to scale. Pass that, file properly, meet two checkpoints, and settlement is currently possible after three years. This page gives you the facts to decide. The call gives you the verdict on your idea.
Every claim below is checkable — tap any of them
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Pro Lifeset Overseas Private Limited · CIN U52291PB2024PTC060508 · since 2024
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Shop No. 2, Nabha Road · walk in, Mon–Sat
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Is this you?
If one of these is you, the fastest way forward is a call: +91 91155 80911.
The ways in
No fixed minimum
Hold: Three-year visa, extendable
Endorsement first, then the visa application at £1,357 from outside the UK. Checkpoint meetings with the endorsing body at 12 and 24 months, £500 each.
Fits: Founders with a truly different product and a realistic UK plan
No fixed minimum
Hold: Three-year visa, extendable
Since Statement of Changes HC 1333 of 25 November 2025, students who have completed a UK course can switch inside the UK at £1,693 and may start self-employment while the application is pending.
Fits: Indian graduates finishing a UK course with a venture ready to go
Capital sent as ODI
Hold: Three-year visa, extendable
The UK company must offer a new product, not a branch doing the same trade. Funding your own UK company is an Overseas Direct Investment under RBI rules.
Fits: Business families starting a truly new line abroad
The facts, checked 2026-09-05
Where families lose money and years
Endorsing bodies judge the idea and the founder. Nobody outside the body can promise its decision, and a middleman who says otherwise is charging you for a coin toss.
A restaurant, an import-export trade or a general consultancy is viable but not innovative. The route needs a truly original idea built for growth and jobs. If your plan could be copied from a directory, it will not pass.
Founders set up a company in London, wire money from a personal account and only then ask their CA. Undoing that order is expensive. ODI first, company and capital second.
The government consulted on “earned settlement” with a ten-year baseline for most routes; the consultation closed on 12 February 2026 and as of July 2026 no draft rules, start date or position on existing route-holders had been confirmed. The three-year rule applies today. Plan for it, but do not bet the family on it.
The India side nobody explains
The visa asks for no investment, but you will fund your own UK company, and a shareholding of 10% or more in a foreign company is Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) under RBI rules — Form A2, Form FC and yearly reporting through your authorised-dealer bank, not the plain LRS portfolio route. Setting up the company and sending money before the ODI paperwork creates a compliance problem that follows the company for years. We plan it with your chartered accountant before the first pound moves.
Maintenance funds for the application and the family’s living costs in Britain are ordinary LRS remittances within each adult’s US$250,000 financial-year limit. Keep them separate from the company capital so the bank, the tax return and the Home Office each see a clean picture.
Your UK shareholding must appear in Schedule FA of your Indian tax return each year. Further on, settlement can lead to citizenship after more residence; taking British citizenship ends Indian citizenship under section 9 of the Citizenship Act 1955, with the OCI card as the replacement. Who in the family should ever take that step is a decision to make knowing the facts.
How it goes, with us
We tell you honestly whether the business you describe is likely to be read as innovative, viable and scalable, or whether it looks like a trading, restaurant or consultancy proposal that endorsing bodies reject. This is the conversation that saves a year.
You approach a Home Office-approved endorsing body with your plan and pay its assessment fee. We do not write the plan or obtain the endorsement, but we make sure the immigration facts you rely on are correct.
CEFR B2 in all four skills and the maintenance funds, shown the way the Home Office expects, with the Indian documents gathered in the right names and formats.
Company capital through the ODI route and living costs through LRS, planned with your bank so nothing is sent out of order.
Once endorsement is held we prepare and file your application and those of your partner and children, with the fee and Immigration Health Surcharge budgeted.
We diarise the 12- and 24-month endorsing-body meetings and track the three-year settlement point against whatever the earned-settlement reform becomes.
What it costs
Visa application fee
Fees from 8 April 2026; per applicant
£1,357 outside the UK / £1,693 inside
Immigration Health Surcharge
Amount confirmed at application
Payable per year
Endorsing body assessment fee
Paid directly to the body
Set by the endorsing body
Checkpoint meetings
At 12 and 24 months
£500 each
Company capital
Sent as ODI, with Form A2, Form FC and yearly reporting
Your choice — no minimum
Our own fee is fixed and quoted after the first call, with 18% GST included. Government and third-party costs are paid at cost.
No. The Tier 1 (Investor) route closed on 17 February 2022 and nothing replaced it. The Innovator Founder visa is the only founder route, and it is earned through an endorsed business idea, not through an investment amount.
There is no fixed minimum; the earlier £50,000 and £200,000 thresholds were abolished. The endorsing body judges whether your plan is realistic and properly funded for what it proposes, and you must separately show maintenance funds for the visa.
A business that is new, innovative (a truly original idea), viable (a realistic plan with commercial potential) and scalable (built for growth and job creation). It then checks on you at 12 and 24 months, each meeting costing £500. Losing endorsement puts the visa itself at risk.
Yes, since the Statement of Changes HC 1333 of 25 November 2025. Students who have completed their UK course can switch into the route inside the UK and may start self-employment while the application is pending. The in-country fee is £1,693.
The route allows the founder to take skilled employment alongside the business. That employment is your own arrangement with a UK employer; we file the Innovator Founder visa, not work permits.
CEFR B2 in reading, writing, speaking and listening, raised from 8 January 2026. Most Indian founders clear it, but the test must be an approved one and the score must be reached in every skill.
Under the rules in force, indefinite leave to remain can be applied for after three continuous years if the endorsing body confirms progress and the growth criteria are met. The earned-settlement consultation proposed a ten-year baseline for most routes with reductions for some, drew over 200,000 responses, and as of July 2026 had produced no draft rules. Whether people already on routes would be affected was unconfirmed. We track this and will tell you what changes.
Your partner and children can apply as dependants alongside your application, each paying their own visa fee and Immigration Health Surcharge. We prepare the dependants’ applications together with yours so the family travels on one timetable.
Other United Kingdom visas: see the United Kingdom page.
Checked 2026-09-05 against: GOV.UK — Innovator Founder visa · GOV.UK — Statement of changes to the Immigration Rules HC 1333 · GOV.UK — Earned settlement consultation. Rules change; we re-check before any filing.
