The UK Start-up visa closed to new applicants on 13 July 2023, so if you have a business idea and want to build it in the UK yourself, the route now is the Innovator Founder visa. There is no minimum investment. Instead, an approved endorsing body has to back your business, and the Home Office then checks your English, your funds and your background.
Who the Innovator Founder visa is for
The route is for founders, not investors. Home Office guidance says an applicant who is only investing in a company must be refused. The business must also be new, so you cannot join one that is already trading.
You must be 18 or over, have written the business plan or made a significant contribution to it, have a day-to-day role in the business, and be the sole founder or an instrumental member of the founding team; each co-founder needs their own endorsement. The plan must be innovative, viable and scalable: original, realistic for your resources and skills, and showing potential for jobs and growth.
This is not a general work visa. Outside your own business, you can only take jobs at Level 3 or above of the UK’s Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF), and you cannot hire out your labour to another business.
What the application asks of you
You need 70 points: 50 for the business, 10 for English and 10 for funds. That means:
- An endorsement letter issued no more than 3 months before you apply, so have your English test result and your 28 days of funds in place before that window closes.
- English at level B2 in all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening), proved by a UK school qualification or degree, an English-taught degree from outside the UK assessed by Ecctis, or a Secure English Language Test (SELT). Iranian and Turkish nationals are not exempt.
- £1,270 in funds held for 28 days, plus more for each family member. Money you plan to invest in the business does not count.
- No serious corruption investigations or proceedings, and no director ban. Either can lead to refusal.
How endorsement works
Only an organisation on the Home Office list of endorsing bodies can endorse a new application. Three take open applications: UK Endorsing Services (UKES), Innovator International and Envestors Limited. The Global Entrepreneurs Programme works by invitation only, and legacy bodies take no new applicants. If anyone else offers you an endorsement, GOV.UK says you can report it.
The body’s letter must confirm that you are fit and proper and that it has no concerns about where your money came from or how it was transferred, so be ready to show where your money came from and how it was transferred.
After you arrive, you must meet your endorsing body at least twice, normally after 12 and 24 months. Do not miss a meeting: your permission can be cancelled if you do. If the body withdraws its support or loses its status, your permission can be cut to 60 or 90 days, though caseworkers should normally let you find another body first.
What it costs
Endorsing-body fees are paid to the body itself, not to the Home Office.
| Item | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Visa fee, applying from outside the UK | £1,357 | Per person: the main applicant and each family member pay it separately |
| Visa fee, extending or switching inside the UK | £1,693 | Per person |
| Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), adult | £1,035 a year | £3,105 for a 3-year visa |
| Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), under 18 | £776 a year | For anyone under 18 on the date of application |
| Endorsing-body assessment | £1,000 | Excluding VAT; paid to the endorsing body |
| Contact-point meeting with the endorsing body | £500 per meeting | At least two meetings; excluding VAT |
| Maintenance funds, main applicant | £1,270 | Not a fee: the money must be held in your account for 28 days |
| Maintenance funds, family members | Partner £285 · first child £315 · each other child £200 | On top of the £1,270, held for the same 28 days |
| Settlement (ILR) application | £3,226 per person | Plus the Life in the UK test (£50) and a fresh endorsement (£1,000, excluding VAT) |
Innovator International adds VAT only for UK residents and charges a single £1,000 fee at 12 months that covers both meetings. Envestors publishes no fees. Get the refund terms in writing before you pay.
Applying from Iran, Turkey or the UAE
What differs for you is mostly practical.
Where you apply. The Immigration Rules say you apply in the country where you live, and this route is not among the exceptions, so if you genuinely live in Turkey or the UAE, you apply there. If the country you live in has no visa centre, GOV.UK says you can choose one in another country. For Iran, GOV.UK links to VFS Global, but no UK government source confirms whether the Tehran centre is operating, so check before you plan anything.
Biometrics. The UK Immigration: ID Check app accepts EU, EEA and Swiss biometric passports, not Iranian ones, so expect to give biometrics at a visa centre.
Money in rials. Turkish lira and UAE dirhams are converted at the OANDA rate on the date you apply, but rials use the FCDO’s monthly consular rate. For applications made in October 2026 the rate is IRR 3,179,500 to £1, so £1,270 equals IRR 4,037,965,000 (about 403.8 million toman). The rate changes every month.
The account and the paper trail. The money must sit in a personal account in your name (alone or joint) that you control, and your latest statement must be dated within 31 days before you apply. Funds do not count if the Home Office cannot verify them satisfactorily, if the bank is not regulated where it operates, or if it keeps no electronic records. No official source says whether Iranian banks pass these tests, so confirm your bank can issue statements the Home Office can verify before the 28 days start. If your money left Iran through an exchange house or an informal transfer, keep a record of every step and expect to show how it moved, not only how much there is.
Persian documents. Submit each Persian document with a full certified translation that is dated, confirms it is accurate, and gives the full name, signature and contact details of the translator or an authorised official of the translation company. The Home Office translation requirements do not include notarisation.
TB test. Living in Iran, Turkey or the UAE does not trigger a tuberculosis (TB) test. You need one only after 6 months or more in a row in a listed country such as Iraq, Armenia or Georgia, including some time in the 6 months before you apply.
No appeal. A refused entry-clearance application cannot be appealed, so get your first application right. Decisions on applications made outside the UK usually take 3 weeks.
Your family and life on the visa
Each grant lasts up to 3 years and can be extended for 3 years at a time with no limit. Your partner (spouse, civil partner or unmarried partner, 18 or over) and children under 18 can join you; older children qualify only if they already have permission as your dependants. Each family member applies separately before travelling, pays their own fees and needs maintenance funds on top of yours. They can work (except as professional sportspeople) and study, and your partner’s permission ends when yours does. Neither you nor they can claim public funds.
Settlement after 3 years
Under the current rules you can apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) after at least 3 years as an Innovator Founder, counting only time as the main applicant. It is not automatic: you need a fresh endorsement, issued in the 3 months before you apply. It must confirm significant achievements against your plan, a business registered at Companies House that is active, trading and sustainable for at least the next 12 months, and your continued day-to-day role in it.
The business must also meet at least two of seven criteria, for example at least £50,000 invested and actively spent, gross revenue of at least £1 million in the last full year, or the equivalent of 10 full-time jobs for settled workers. You also need to pass the Life in the UK test and must not spend more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12-month period. Your partner needs 5 continuous years in the UK with permission as your partner before they can settle, and partners and children who apply to settle on or after 26 March 2027 need English at B2 in speaking and listening, unless an exemption applies.
You may read that UK settlement is moving to 10 years. That is a proposal, not a rule. The earned settlement consultation, which closed on 12 February 2026, proposed a 10-year baseline with conditions such as B2 English and minimum earnings, and a reduction of up to 7 years for Innovator Founders, which would keep settlement possible after 3 years’ continuous residence. It also asked whether the new model should apply to people already in the UK without ILR. As of 13 October 2026 no outcome or timeline has been published, so do not plan around it either way.
If you are weighing other founder routes, compare the Netherlands, Finland and Estonia start-up visas, read our guide to entrepreneur options beyond Canada, or see our UK immigration page. To have your plan and funds checked before you pay an endorsing body, book a consultation.
Frequently asked questions
Is the UK Start-up visa still open?
No. It closed to new applicants on 13 July 2023, and its rules were deleted on 8 October 2026. Founders now apply for the Innovator Founder visa.
Do I need a minimum investment?
No. The £50,000 minimum investment for the old Innovator visa was removed in April 2023, and £50,000 now appears only as one of the seven settlement criteria, of which you need at least two. You still have to show your endorsing body where your funding came from.
Can Iranians apply for the Innovator Founder visa?
The rules for this route set no nationality bar, and Iran is not one of the nationalities covered by the ‘visa brake’ restrictions introduced in March 2026. What differs is practical: where you apply, how rials are converted, whether your bank can be verified and how you show where your money came from.
Official sources
GOV.UK: Innovator Founder visa · Immigration Rules: Appendix Innovator Founder · Immigration Rules: Appendix Finance · Immigration Rules: Part 1 · Innovator Founder endorsing bodies · Home Office fees from 8 October 2026 · Documents you’ll need to apply
This article is general information, not legal advice, and it describes published official rules rather than any individual case.
