The Youth Mobility Scheme is the UK's working holiday visa: two years to live and work, no sponsor, no job offer, £340. Eligibility runs on nationality and age, the savings requirement is £2,530 rather than the usual £1,270, and for two territories you have to win a ballot before you can even apply.
UK Work Visas
Youth Mobility Scheme Visa UK 2026: Ages, Ballot and Costs
What the Scheme Is
A two-year unsponsored visa for young people from participating countries and certain British nationality categories. You need to be 18 to 30, or 18 to 35 depending on where you are from, and to have £2,530 in savings. The fee is £340 plus the health surcharge at £776 a year. You can work in most jobs, be self-employed within limits, and study. Family cannot be included in your application.
It is the closest thing the UK has to a working holiday visa, and the freest permission on offer for the people who qualify — no employer, no occupation code, no salary threshold and no English test. What replaces all of that is a birthday and a passport.
Who Can Apply
There are three groups, and the age band differs between them. Nationals of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea can apply aged 18 to 35. Nationals of the other participating countries and territories apply aged 18 to 30. British overseas citizens, British overseas territories citizens and British nationals (overseas) also apply in the 18 to 30 band.
The age test is more forgiving than it looks. You must be 18 or over when the visa starts, or within the upper age limit when you apply — so you can apply before turning 18, and you can be over the limit by the time the permission begins. Turning 31 after the visa is issued does not shorten it.
Indian nationals are not on this scheme at all. They have their own arrangement — see the India Young Professionals Scheme, with costs in local currency covered in our rupee fee guide.
The Ballot
If you hold a Hong Kong SAR passport, or are from Taiwan, you must be selected in the Youth Mobility Scheme ballot before you can apply for the visa at all. Entering the ballot is not the application and being selected is not a grant — it is permission to make an application, which is then assessed on the ordinary requirements. Applicants from these places therefore plan around two separate deadlines, and a selection that is not used within the window is simply lost.
Requirements
- Nationality: a participating country or territory, or a qualifying British nationality category.
- Age: 18 to 35 for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea; 18 to 30 for everyone else.
- Savings: £2,530 held for 28 consecutive days, day 28 within 31 days of applying.
- No children: you cannot apply if you have children under 18 living with you, or children you are financially responsible for.
- Once only: you cannot apply if you have already been in the UK under the scheme.
- Documents: passport, bank statement, tuberculosis test results where required, and certified translations for anything not in English or Welsh.
The children rule catches people out because it is not about who travels with you. Having children under 18 who live with you, or for whom you are financially responsible, bars the application whether or not they are coming to the UK.
Self-Employment Within Limits
The scheme permits self-employment and setting up a company, but on three conditions that are easy to breach without noticing: your premises must be rented rather than owned, your equipment must be worth no more than £5,000, and you must have no employees. A freelance career fits comfortably; a business that buys a van and hires an assistant does not.
Cost
£340 for the application, plus the health surcharge at £776 a year — the discounted rate rather than the £1,035 adult rate, which over two years is £1,552 instead of £2,070. You also need to prove the £2,530 in savings, which is money shown rather than money paid. The surcharge mechanics are in our surcharge guide.
How to Apply
You can apply up to six months before you travel — GOV.UK's own example is applying on 16 January to travel on 15 July. Decisions usually arrive within three weeks. The process is the standard one described in our application form guide, and once granted you can enter at any time while the visa is valid and come and go freely during the two years.
Extending
Most people cannot extend. The exception is nationals of Australia, Canada and New Zealand, who can extend by one year after the two-year period ends — a third year that nobody else on the scheme gets. Everyone else has two years and then must leave or qualify for a different route.
Travel During the Two Years
You can enter the UK at any point while the visa is valid and leave and return freely throughout. There is no requirement to arrive on a particular date, and no penalty for spending part of the period elsewhere — though time spent outside the UK is time not spent building the work history that makes a later switch realistic.
Switching to Something Else
The scheme is a common on-ramp to longer routes, and the switch has to be arranged before the permission runs out. Skilled Worker is the usual destination and needs an employer holding a licence — the obligations are in our sponsorship guide. Relationships formed during the two years lead to the partner route, and study to the Student route.
Time on the scheme does not count towards settlement, so the settlement clock starts only when you move onto a qualifying route. Two years of UK work experience makes that move easier in practice, but it buys nothing in the count itself.
Planning the Exit Before You Arrive
Because the permission cannot be extended for most nationalities, the useful planning happens at the start rather than in month twenty. Anyone hoping to stay should treat the first year as the one in which to find an employer willing to sponsor, since a licence application alone takes around eight weeks and a certificate has to be assigned on top of that.
EU Nationals
There is no EU-wide youth mobility arrangement. Participation is country by country, and several European countries and territories appear on the list in their own right while others do not. EU citizenship as such confers no access — what matters is whether your specific nationality is one of the participating ones for the year in which you apply.
British Nationality Categories
Three British nationality statuses give access in the 18 to 30 band: British overseas citizen, British overseas territories citizen and British national (overseas). These are separate from British citizenship, which needs no visa at all, and people sometimes discover they hold one of them only when checking a parent\u2019s or grandparent\u2019s documents.
Where Applications Fail
The savings requirement is the biggest single cause. £2,530 must have been in the account for 28 consecutive days, with day 28 falling within 31 days of applying — money moved in shortly before the application fails the test however large the balance. The children rule and previous participation are the next two, and both are absolute rather than discretionary.
A refusal is normally challenged through administrative review. Where a refusal involves deception the consequences last far longer than the scheme itself would have done — see our re-entry ban guide.
Sources: GOV.UK Youth Mobility Scheme route page on GOV.UK; the Youth Mobility Scheme ballot guidance; and types of British nationality. Figures verified 22 August 2026.
Frequently Asked
Questions about the Youth Mobility Scheme
18 to 35 if you are from Australia, Canada, New Zealand or South Korea; 18 to 30 for the other participating countries and territories and for the qualifying British nationality categories. You must be 18 or over when the visa starts, or within the upper limit when you apply — so applying just before a birthday works, and turning 31 afterwards does not cut the visa short.
£2,530, held in your account for 28 days in a row, with day 28 falling within 31 days of the application. That is more than double the £1,270 required on most work routes. It is proved by bank statement rather than paid to anyone, but a balance topped up days before applying will not satisfy the 28-day rule.
Only if you hold a Hong Kong SAR passport or are from Taiwan. Applicants from those places must be selected in the Youth Mobility Scheme ballot before applying for the visa. Selection is permission to apply, not a grant — the application is then assessed on the ordinary requirements like anyone else's.
£340 for the application plus the health surcharge at £776 a year — the discounted rate, which is £1,552 across the two years rather than the £2,070 an adult would pay at the standard rate. Add the £2,530 in savings you have to show, and the scheme is cheaper than any sponsored route of comparable length.
Family members cannot be included in your application — they must apply separately in their own right. More restrictively, you cannot apply at all if you have children under 18 who live with you or children you are financially responsible for, whether or not they would be coming to the UK.
You cannot apply twice — previous time in the UK under the scheme bars a further application. Extension is possible only for nationals of Australia, Canada and New Zealand, who can extend by one year after the two-year period ends. Everyone else has two years and then needs a different route or has to leave.
Most jobs, at any level, for any employer, plus study — some courses need an Academic Technology Approval Scheme certificate. You can be self-employed and set up a company provided your premises are rented, your equipment is worth no more than £5,000 and you have no employees. You cannot work as a professional sportsperson or coach, or claim public funds.
No. Time on the Youth Mobility Scheme does not count towards indefinite leave to remain. The settlement clock starts when you move onto a qualifying route, most often Skilled Worker or a partner route. Two years of UK experience and contacts make that move more achievable, but the count itself begins again.