Youth Mobility Scheme: Iceland and India

Citizens of Iceland and India will in future be able to get a Youth Mobility visa. There will be 1,000 places for Iceland (population: 366,000) and 3,000 places for India (population: 1.4 billion). Indians interested in the visa will therefore enter a lottery (“invitation to apply arrangements”), as Japanese, Taiwanese, Hongkongers and South Koreans already do.

There are also extra requirements for Indian citizens. They must satisfy either paragraph YMS 4.5B or YMS 4.5C:

YMS 4.5B. This additional requirement is met where the applicant:

(a) holds a qualification equal to or above RQF level 6; and

(b) provides evidence of that qualification in the form of written confirmation from the issuing institution that they successfully completed their studies and graduated with the required qualification

RQF level 6 means an undergraduate degree. Alternatively:

YMS 4.5C. This additional requirement is met where the applicant:

(a) has a minimum of three years’ work experience in a professional role equivalent to an eligible occupation listed in Appendix Skilled Occupations; and

(b) provides evidence of that work experience in the form of either:

(i) formal payslips from the applicant’s employer showing the applicant’s job title and employer’s name; or

(ii) payslips accompanied by a letter from the applicant’s employer, on the employer’s headed paper and signed by a senior official, confirming the payslips are authentic.

Appendix Skilled Occupations lists roles that can be sponsored for a Skilled Worker or Intra Company Transfer visas. The difference with Youth Mobility compared with those routes is that there is no need for employer sponsorship.

When the government first announced that Indians would get Youth Mobility visas, it said that they would need to “be able to express themselves in the language(s) of the host country”, but that seems to have been dropped as there is no mention of an English language requirement.

None of this takes effect until 1 January 2022.

For further queries about the visa, do email us at vijay@singhaniauk.com