MAC interviews on financial requirements for the Family Visa route
Published 9 January 2025
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Background
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has been commissioned by the Home Secretary to review the financial requirements on the family immigration rules. This includes the current Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) and the Adequate Maintenance (AM) test when sponsoring family members to come to or stay in the UK. The MIR is currently £29,000, and plans under the previous government were to increase this to £34,500 and again to £38,700 by early 2025. Both tests seek to balance a respect for family life as set out by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) with maintaining the economic wellbeing of the UK.
About the project
Revealing Reality have been appointed to conduct interviews on behalf of the MAC. You may have received an email inviting you to participate by the Home Office on the MAC’s behalf. If you completed the MAC’s Call for Evidence and agreed that Revealing Reality could contact you, this will have been using the contact information you provided then. If you did not complete the Call for Evidence, it will have been using information you submitted to the Home Office as part of your visa application.
Participating in an interview
Interviews will take place either online through Microsoft Teams, or in person, and will last between 1 to 2 hours. Revealing Reality will ask you about your experience of financial requirements on the family visa, whether you have successfully applied for a family visa or not. By being interviewed, you will help us to understand your experience around deciding to apply for a family visa, your views on meeting the current minimum income requirement which is £29,000 and the impacts of having met the requirements or not.
To express your interest in participating in an interview, please click on the link included in your email. The interview can be completed by yourself, your sponsor or together if preferred. Once you have done this, a researcher from Revealing Reality may contact you to arrange either an online or in person interview. Revealing Reality will be providing a gift voucher to all those they interview, to thank them for their time. You should note that participation in the research is entirely voluntary and will not affect your visa status with the Home Office either now or in the future.
Further information about the interviews is available
How will the information be used?
Revealing Reality will ask for your permission to record the interview, but all interview transcripts and outputs will be fully anonymised before they are shared with the MAC. The Revealing Reality and MAC research teams will draw on these interviews to the MAC to produce aggregated findings. Any quotes and findings used will be anonymised before they are published, and nothing will be used that could identify you personally.
You have the right to withdraw your data at any stage in the research (before any data is anonymised).
More about how your information will be processed by Revealing Reality is also available.
Contact information
Revealing Reality
The Ballroom, Maritime House
Grafton Square
London
SW4 0JW
UK
contactus@revealingreality.co.uk
Migration Advisory Committee
2nd Floor Peel, Home Office Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
UK
MAC@homeoffice.gov.uk