A Home Office rule change from November 30 raises the funds Nigerian students must prove they have, on a timeline set entirely in London.

The UK Home Office published a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules on September 3, raising the maintenance funds required for a Student visa from November 30, 2026. Students whose main study location is London will need to show £1,570 a month, up from £1,529. Students outside London will need £1,203 a month, up from £1,171.

Over the maximum nine months the rule covers, that pushes the total requirement to £14,130 for London, up from £13,761, and £10,827 outside London, up from £10,539. For a London student, that maximum maintenance requirement is roughly N25 million at current exchange rates, though the exact naira figure moves with the rate on the day it's calculated. This is the proof of funds a student must show to get the visa. It is separate from and additional to tuition. The Home Office says the change keeps the Student route maintenance requirement aligned with the loan amounts available to UK-resident students for the 2026-27 academic year.

The timing puts the new threshold directly ahead of the January intake many Nigerian applicants are currently preparing for. Anyone who submits before November 30 is assessed under the current, lower figures. Anyone who submits after is not.

Nigeria remains one of the UK's largest sources of international students. In the year ending June 2026, the UK granted 26,060 Sponsored Study visas to Nigerian main applicants, 7 percent of the total and third globally behind China and India, even as total Sponsored Study visa grants fell 12 percent over the same period.

This increase does not arrive on its own. It lands in the same rules package that raises maintenance requirements every year to track UK domestic student loan levels. The number Nigerian applicants need to show keeps rising, on a schedule set in Westminster.

The requirement exists to prove a student can support themselves without working illegally or falling into hardship. It says nothing about tuition, which most Nigerian families are already stretching to cover in a currency that keeps moving against the naira. Families that had the plan costed as of August now need to recost it, for a rule they had no part in writing and a deadline they don't control.