Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the weight to an applicant's economic ties, such as business ownership or property, when assessing whether they are likely to leave the UK at the end of their visit in Visit Visa guidance to Entry Clearance Officers.

All applicants seeking entry clearance into the UK must meet the genuine visitor requirements and will need to satisfy the decision maker that they are a genuine visitor who will leave the UK at the end of their visit, before being accepted for a visit visa.

A significant degree of weight is attributed to an applicant's economic and personal ties to their home country. Assessing an applicant’s economic ties, such as having a job or property, coupled with their personal and family ties to their home country is a good indicator of whether an applicant is a genuine visitor.

However, every application is assessed objectively on a case-by-case basis in line with the evidence provided to the decision maker. An applicant's poor economic ties to their home country will not be grounds for automatic refusal if they can provide other strong evidence that would satisfy the decision maker that they are a genuine visitor.