Calculate Your UK Funds Requirement
Enter your CAS fee after any scholarship, your course location, and what you have already paid the university. The calculator adds nine months of living costs at the correct gov.uk rate and a planning buffer, and gives you the total you need to be able to show.
Estimate Your UK Funds Requirement
Illustrative only, based on the gov.uk maintenance rates in effect as of July 2026. This total must still sit in the account for the full 28-day continuous-balance window described above, and living-cost figures are revised periodically. Confirm the current amount on gov.uk before you transfer or freeze any funds. This is a planning estimate, not a guarantee of visa approval.
This is a planning estimate to work from, not a document to submit. The number it gives you is the amount that needs to sit in a personal account for the 28-day window explained below, and the living-cost rates are revised periodically, so confirm the current figure on gov.uk before you rely on it for a real application.
The Formula, Broken Down
Every UK student visa funds total is built from the same three parts. Most guides state the living-cost figure and stop there, which is only one-third of the answer.
| Component | How it is calculated | Worked example |
|---|---|---|
| Remaining tuition | CAS fee (after scholarship) minus what you have already paid | 20,000 - 10,000 = 10,000 |
| Living costs | Monthly rate (London or outside) x 9 months | 1,171 x 9 = 10,539 |
| Planning buffer | Transfer charges + flight + incidentals (not a gov.uk figure) | 100 + 500 + 400 = 1,000 |
Add the three and you get the total to show: in this example, 10,000 plus 10,539 plus 1,000 is 21,539 GBP. Change any one input, the CAS fee, how much is already paid, or the course city, and the total moves. That is why a single number quoted in a generic guide is rarely your actual number.
The 28-Day Continuous-Balance Rule
The amount is the easy part. The full required total must sit in the account for 28 consecutive days, and the closing-balance date on the evidence you submit must fall within 31 days of your application date. If the balance drops below the required figure on even a single day inside that window, for a bank charge, a small transfer out, anything, the 28-day count resets from the day it recovered.
The account does not need to sit frozen and untouched for those 28 days. Ordinary transactions, salary credits, bill payments, transfers, can carry on as normal. The only rule is the balance itself: it must never fall below the required figure on any single day in that window. What moves in and out above that floor does not matter.
A balance that is correct on the day you check it is not the same as a balance that has been correct for 28 days running. Check the full statement, not just today's figure, before you file.
What Counts as Valid Evidence, and What Does Not
The account has to be a personal bank or building society account that gives immediate access to the money. A business account statement is not accepted as evidence, even when the business belongs to the applicant or a parent. Families whose income sits mainly in a business account need to move the required amount into a personal account first, then let it sit there for the full 28 days before applying.
Hard stops
- Submitting a business or company account statement, assuming it counts because the family owns the business.
- Checking the balance on the day of filing instead of the full 28-day statement history.
- Using an account that restricts immediate access, such as a fixed deposit that has not been broken into a liquid account.
Building a Clean Evidence Package
A single bank statement is rarely enough on its own. In practice, a funds submission that survives scrutiny pairs two documents, not one.
- Statement of account - the transaction history covering the full 28-day window, showing every credit and debit and the running balance day by day.
- Balance certificate - a separate letter from the bank, on its letterhead, stating explicitly what the minimum balance held in the account was over the last 28 days. That stated figure has to be at or above the required amount. It can be higher than what is strictly needed. It cannot be lower.
The statement shows the activity. The certificate is the bank vouching for the minimum. Caseworkers look for both, because a statement alone can be read more than one way, while a certificate that names the 28-day minimum removes the ambiguity.
If Part of the Funds Are in a Fixed Deposit
An FD needs more than a current-value figure. The FD certificate or letter should confirm:
- How long the FD has been held - its opening date and tenure, not just today's value.
- Its balance as of a stated date.
- What the minimum balance was over the last 28 days once the FD is counted toward the total.
- That the FD can be withdrawn or broken by the account holder at any time - it is not a restricted, long-lock instrument.
- That the FD is not pledged as collateral against any loan or overdraft.
An FD that cannot be broken on demand, or one already pledged elsewhere, does not count as available funds, whatever its face value shows.
If the Funds Are Not in the Student's Own Name
If every rupee sits in an account in the student's own name, that is the cleanest case. If a parent or another family member is providing part or all of the funds, that support needs its own paper trail: a notarized sponsor letter from the parent, alongside the parent's own statement of account and balance certificate covering their contribution.
Education Loans Are Treated Differently, But Not However Most Families Assume
A loan letter can be used as financial evidence without the 28-day hold, but only from a specific category of lender: a government, a government-sponsored student loan company, or a recognised academic or educational loan scheme. The letter must be dated within 6 months of the application, confirm the funds will be released with no condition beyond a successful application to study, and confirm the money will be available before the course starts.
This is narrower than most Indian families assume. A standard education loan from a nationalised or private Indian bank, an SBI, HDFC, or Axis-type loan, is a commercial lending product, not a government-sponsored student loan scheme in the sense gov.uk means. Once that loan is disbursed into a personal account, it is treated as an ordinary balance and needs the full 28 consecutive days like savings would.
Operational Insight
The mistake is planning the loan disbursement date around the university deposit deadline and forgetting it also has to clear a 28-day window before the visa application. If the loan lands in the account two weeks before filing, it has value but not yet visa-qualifying maturity. Confirm your specific loan provider's status before assuming the exemption applies, and if it does not, work backward from your intended application date to fix the disbursement date.
Three Ways Families Get the Number Wrong
Beyond the mid-window dip, three patterns account for most funds-related refusals in profiles that had, in principle, enough money.
- Miscalculation - working out the total by hand and landing short, commonly by mistiming a change of city partway through the course (the London versus outside-London rate follows where the course is based, not where the family lives) or by rounding a partial month down to zero.
- Timing, not amount - arranging funds close to the application date so they are sufficient in value but never complete a full 28-day window at all. This is a different failure from a dip: there was simply no qualifying 28-day stretch on the statement.
- Bank clerical errors - a wrong date or a wrong closing balance caused by an error at the bank's end, not the applicant's. The visa officer reads the document as submitted. Cross-check every date and balance against the account's real activity before filing.