What is the Youth Mobility Scheme and how does it work?

by Madeleine Sumption

The UK and EU have reportedly been exploring a visa scheme for young people to move between the UK and the EU on a temporary basis. This Q&A explains existing Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) rules and data.

What is the Youth Mobility Scheme?

The Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) allows people from specific countries to come to the UK for two to three years on a temporary visa. It is reciprocal, allowing British citizens to get similar temporary visas in those other countries. YMS schemes are often known as ‘backpacker visas’ or ‘working holiday’ visas. They aim to promote cultural exchange, and not just to provide a source of workers in the labour market.

Key features of YMS visas in the UK include:

• Visa applicants must come from an eligible country: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Andorra, Iceland, Monaco, San Marino, Uruguay, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. A separate ‘young professionals’ scheme exists for Indian citizens, with slightly different requirements.

• Visa holders must be between age 18 and 30, or 35 for some countries.

• People holding the YMS visa can study, work, or travel as they wish. They can choose to work in any job—that is, they are not tied to specific types of work. YMS visa holders can be self-employed but cannot set up a business with employees They have no access to welfare benefits and cannot bring family members with them.

• Visas are strictly temporary. They last for up to two or three years, depending on the country of origin. However, if the person then qualifies for a different visa such as a study or skilled work visa, they can apply for that.
• The number of visas is capped.

If a YMS deal with the EU had the same characteristics, it would thus be quite different from free movement. Free movement and YMS both allowed people to work in any job. However, free movement had no limit on numbers, age, or length of residence, and it also allowed access to welfare benefits in some circumstances.

How big is the Youth Mobility Scheme?

In 2024, the UK granted just over 24,000 YMS visas. This was around 2.5% of the roughly 970,000 residence visas issued that year.

The current YMS has caps for each participating country, although the caps have usually exceeded the number of applicants and so have not been binding. The caps are negotiated with participating countries, and are loosely reciprocal—that is, countries where British young people go in larger numbers get more YMS places in the UK. As a result, Australia has the largest cap (Table 1). If the cap risks being met, places can be allocated by lottery.

Table 1

Country	Visas issued, 2024	Cap
Australia	9,750	45,000
New Zealand	4,300	8,500
Canada	3,060	8,000
Japan	2,280	6,000
India (Young Prof. Scheme)	2,260	3,000
South Korea	1,700	5,000
Taiwan	660	1,000
Uruguay	140	500
Hong Kong	140	1,000
Iceland	23	1,000
Andorra	4	100
San Marino	3	1,000
Monaco	1	1,000
Total	24,400	81,100

Source: Home Office Immigration Statistics, entry visas table Vis_D02.

Notes: Figures above 50 rounded to the nearest 10. Total includes some visas recorded as granted to nationalities that are not eligible, which may result from data recording errors or dual nationals.

No reliable data exist on what kind of work YMS visa holders currently do in the UK, because visa applicants do not need to have a job lined up when they apply. In principle data could be obtained by linking HMRC and visa data, which—at least for those required to declare earnings to HMRC—would make it possible to understand much better the likely labour market impacts of the programme.

What impact does YMS have on net migration?

People on YMS visas cannot extend their visa beyond the maximum duration and they can only hold the visa once in their lifetime. However, if they are eligible for another visa they can apply for that visa. Spending time in the UK is likely to make it easier to find a job offer for a long-term visa in some cases. In other cases, people will meet partners and become eligible for family visas.

Data for the main YMS nationalities—Australia, Canada and New Zealand—suggest that roughly 10% of visa holders who entered in the mid-2010s ended up staying in the UK long term after entering on a Youth Mobility Scheme visa. Figure 2 shows the share of people from these three countries whose visas had expired granted temporary work visas, the vast majority of which will have been under YMS.

Figure 1

More recent data suggest that YMS visa holders from these countries have become slightly more likely to stay in the UK for at least 5 years. For example, among Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders receiving their temporary work visa in 2014, 84% had left four to five years later. For those entering in 2019, the figure had fallen to 25%.

Among those entering in 2019, 15% had moved to long-term work visas with a path to permanent status by the end of 2023, and a further 6% had moved onto family visas as a partner of a British citizen or EU citizen.

As a result, the impact of youth mobility schemes on net migration in the long term will not be zero. However, it is likely to be relatively small compared to other migration categories where people have a direct path to permanent status and a higher proportion of people stay.