UK Student visa bank evidence: what 28 days and 31 days mean

The 28 days and the 31 days answer different questions

In the section about your own money, or a parent’s or partner’s money, the detailed guidance, updated 31 December 2025, says: “You must have had enough money for 28 days in a row.” It then says to calculate the period by counting back from the date of the closing balance on the most recent evidence you provide.

The same section separately says: “The evidence must be from no more than 31 days before the date you apply for your visa.” The Student visa money page says you must have this money “for at least 28 days in a row” and that the end date of the 28-day period must be within 31 days of the application date. That page showed no visible section-level update date when checked on 17 October 2026.

Neither number tells you how much money you need or whether this evidence route applies to you. Both pages describe circumstances where evidence requirements differ, and the detailed guidance treats loans and official sponsorship separately. Its nationality section distinguishes not submitting evidence upfront from meeting the financial requirements: a decision maker may still request evidence. So this explanation of the two numbers can’t tell you whether you’re exempt.

The money page separates course fees, with the amount shown on your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS), from money to support yourself. It lists different living-cost amounts for study in London and outside London, treats boarding fees separately, and points to extra money for family members. Entering a threshold in a worksheet only gives you a number to compare against. It doesn’t calculate those requirements or identify an exception.

Count both ends of the balance period

A worksheet covering daily balances from 1 October through 28 October 2026 contains 28 calendar dates because both the starting date and the ending date count. Weekends count too. You’re counting calendar dates here, not banking business days or transaction rows.

Inclusive days = end date - start date + 1
28 October 2026 - 1 October 2026 + 1 = 28 days

Start of a 28-date window = end date - 27 days
28 October 2026 - 27 days = 1 October 2026

The plus one is easy to miss: 1 October through 27 October contains only 27 dates. Counting backwards by a full 28 days instead of 27 selects a different starting date. These are calendar calculations, not instructions about which date the Home Office will accept as the start of your funds period.

The date labels on the original evidence matter because the detailed guidance refers to the date of the closing balance on the most recent evidence, not simply the last transaction in a CSV. A download timestamp can’t stand in for that date either. If the document’s issue date, balance date and transaction dates differ, record them separately rather than silently choosing whichever is latest.

For the separate recency calculation, suppose the fictional period ends on 28 October and the fictional application date is 20 November 2026. The elapsed gap is 23 days:

Elapsed gap = application date - period end date
20 November 2026 - 28 October 2026 = 23 days

There’s no plus one in that subtraction because it measures elapsed days between dates, not the number of daily balance observations. That gives you a date difference, nothing more: it isn’t a recommendation to apply on 20 November or a conclusion that any evidence is acceptable.

A £1,100 closing balance can hide a £999 day

This entirely fictional example covers a period beyond the date we checked the sources. We’ve chosen an arbitrary £1,000 threshold to keep the arithmetic easy. £1,000 is not a visa requirement. The account has £1,100 immediately before 1 October 2026. We assume complete posted records through 28 October, one currency and no movements except these two:

Posted date,Amount,Description
2026-10-14,-101.00,Fictional withdrawal
2026-10-15,101.00,Fictional deposit

Negative amounts leave this account; positive amounts enter it. On 14 October, £1,100 minus £101 leaves £999. The next day, £999 plus £101 restores £1,100. Carrying the closing balance forward across the covered quiet days produces this schedule:

There are 27 dates at or above the chosen threshold, but they aren’t consecutive: the low day separates a 13-day run from a 14-day run. That leaves a longest run of 14 days, and the 28-date window ending on 28 October includes a below-threshold close.

An average won’t fix that interruption. The daily balances sum to £30,699 balance-days: £1,100 × 27 + £999 × 1. Dividing by 28 gives an average of £1,096.39 displayed to two decimal places. Both that average and the £1,100 closing balance exceed £1,000, while the minimum is still £999.

A continuous minimum, an average and an ending balance answer different arithmetic questions; none determines the outcome of a visa application. The daily balance spreadsheet guide explains how to build the daily schedule and why averaging transaction rows gives the wrong measure.

A quiet day is not the same as a missing day

We could carry balances forward in the fictional example because we assumed complete records. Before doing that with your export, you’ll need to check its coverage. A CSV with no row on 14 October could mean nothing moved, or it could mean a page or transaction is missing. The empty space doesn’t tell you which.

The calculation needs a balance immediately before the chosen period and records covering every date through its end, so compare statement periods, page sequences and amounts with the original documents. The statement coverage checker helps compare declared periods, but it can’t establish that every movement inside them was captured. With an unexplained gap or missing opening balance, the worksheet result is unknown, not zero and not a continuous run.

Even a complete end-of-day schedule doesn’t show what happened at every moment. It won’t reveal an intraday dip that was reversed before the close, or establish immediate access to funds. That’s why you shouldn’t label daily closing balances “funds verified throughout” or treat matching arithmetic as document authentication.

The documents matter beyond their totals

For the own-money, parent’s-money or partner’s-money route, the guidance updated 31 December 2025 lists bank statements, including paper statements or electronic downloads; building society passbooks; certificates of deposit; and letters from the bank or building society. It says the evidence must show your name, the bank or building society’s name, and how much money is in the account.

Having one of those documents isn’t the whole question. The same guidance discusses who controls the account, immediate access to the money and how the money was acquired. Its parent’s-money route calls for a letter agreeing to the use of the funds, and it also lists forms of money or accounts that cannot be used. This article isn’t a complete document checklist or an interpretation of how those conditions apply to your family.

For foreign currency, the guidance says UKVI converts to pounds using OANDA’s spot exchange rate for the application date. We don’t perform that conversion here. An account balance and a threshold in different currencies wouldn’t give you a meaningful arithmetic comparison.

Keep your original evidence separate from the worksheet, because a spreadsheet you build is a working calculation, not a bank-issued statement. The guidance also says UKVI may verify evidence with the bank and that an application may be refused if it cannot verify the evidence. Our arithmetic checks don’t perform that verification.

Use the checker to inspect a run, not to get a visa verdict

The balance streak checker works out the run of daily closes described by your supplied opening balance, posted movements, dates and threshold. To reproduce this article’s example, use the two-row CSV above with a period of 1–28 October 2026, an opening balance of £1,100 and an arbitrary threshold of £1,000. You’ll also need to confirm the fictional complete coverage assumption and use a 28-day window ending on 28 October.

Anyone you share the result with needs to see that assumption too. For this example, you could write: “Fictional GBP account, 1–28 October 2026; complete posted records assumed; £1,000 demonstration threshold; minimum daily close £999; longest run at or above threshold 14 days.” That describes what was counted without calling the statement acceptable.

If you need to reconstruct the daily balances first, use the daily balance calculator or the worked spreadsheet method. Neither can supply missing bank records. Questions about required funds, applicable exceptions or document sufficiency need the current GOV.UK pages and advice from your education provider or an appropriately qualified immigration adviser, not a decision inferred from a calculator.

What we checked

We opened both linked GOV.UK pages on 17 October 2026. The detailed financial evidence page displayed “Last updated: 31 December 2025”; the Student visa money section showed no visible section-level update date. We used Python date arithmetic and Decimal to check the fictional CSV, inclusive and elapsed day counts, daily balances, minimum, average and consecutive runs. We did not test a visa application, bank-document acceptance, foreign-exchange conversion, the checker in a browser, or this example in Excel or Google Sheets. These checks establish the example’s arithmetic only. Read the current official guidance again before relying on its requirements.