Yes, if you are married or in a civil partnership. Gibraltar's Residency Regulations 2026, now in force, let one qualifying salary, currently £37,500 a year, bring your spouse or civil partner and children into the country alongside you, with no extra salary required per dependant. The spouse or civil partner costs an additional payment tied to social insurance, children come free, and whether an unmarried, de facto partner has any route in at all is not addressed either way in the regulations. The one question everybody actually wants answered, whether the spouse can work once they're here, is still not addressed anywhere in the published material.
Can your partner and kids move to Gibraltar with you if you take a job here? It's the question that comes right after the salary question, and most of the coverage of Gibraltar's new residency rules skips straight past it. Every article repeats the same three numbers: the £37,500 threshold, the age cap, the renewal fee, and stops there.
Ask around any Gibraltar relocation Facebook group for more than a week and you'll find the same pinned question resurfacing on its own: my partner doesn't have a job lined up yet, can they even come with me. The government's own Residency Policy Paper does answer parts of this in plain language, and it also leaves some genuinely important questions open. What follows is what the paper actually says, word for word, plus the parts it doesn't say at all.
The short answer: yes, on one salary
The £37,500 threshold that qualifies you for the new employee residency route does not rise if you bring people with you. One salary covers the household. The Policy Paper puts it plainly:
"Any individual applying for Residence in Gibraltar and wishes their spouse to reside with them shall pay an amount equivalent to the maximum employee's Social Insurance contribution to HMGoG, on behalf of their Spouse. Any individual applying for Residence may be accompanied only by their spouse and/or children."
That was the June Policy Paper's wording. The Residency Regulations 2026, which came into force on 14 July 2026 and now govern this in law, widen it slightly: they cover a spouse or civil partner, plus children. Two things matter here. First, a spouse or civil partner and children can come, with no separate salary test for any of them. Second, the regulations still limit it to that specific list, nobody else is named.
What it actually costs to bring your spouse
Children cost nothing extra. The paper is clear on that point. For a spouse, there is a charge, described as an amount "equivalent to the maximum employee's Social Insurance contribution." What that means in pounds, or how often it gets billed, is not written down anywhere we could find, not in the paper itself and not in any of the law firm commentary that followed it.
For scale only, not as an answer: the maximum employee social insurance contribution today runs at £40.79 a week, or £2,121.21 a year, on current verified rates. Whether the spouse charge matches that annual figure, gets billed weekly, gets billed once, or moves the next time the SI cap changes is genuinely unclear. Treat that number as context for what the wider SI system charges everyone else, not as a quote for what your household will actually pay.
The catch: spouses and civil partners are covered, unmarried partners are still an open question
The regulations name a spouse or civil partner, and children, nobody else. That is real movement from the Policy Paper's married-only wording, a registered civil partnership now clearly counts the same as a marriage. What is genuinely still open is whether an unmarried, de facto partner of a work-permit holder has any route in at all, however long you've been together. The regulations do not address it either way, so treat this as an unresolved gap, not a confirmed no.
The one flexibility that does exist in Gibraltar's rules, a 2-year durable-relationship route, is reserved for partners of a Gibraltarian Status holder, not for partners of someone here on the new employee residency route. Chief Minister Fabian Picardo drew that line himself in June 2026, quoted in the Chronicle. The flexibility, he said, applies to someone "in a civil partnership with a Gibraltarian or indeed in a long-term relationship with a Gibraltarian," and that "is different to a situation where you're dealing with somebody who's just decided that they quite like the idea of living in Gibraltar." If you and your partner aren't married or in a civil partnership, and neither of you holds Gibraltarian Status, the regulations don't currently give you a clear route in, though that gap has not been explicitly closed off either.
What the family actually gets once they're here
For a spouse and children who do qualify, the paper sets out three things:
- Healthcare through GPMS, covering the applicant, their spouse, and their children under 18 or still in tertiary education. The paper is explicit that this does not extend to parents of the applicant.
- Schooling in Gibraltar for children under 18, unless they're already in full-time education elsewhere.
- A scholarship for a dependent child, but only after 10 years of continuous lawful residence with tax and social insurance paid without a gap.
What families do not get on this route: elderly residential care, domiciliary care, public or affordable housing, or a Small Boats Marina berth. Those stay reserved for full Gibraltarian Status.
The honest unknowns, and why they matter more than the numbers
This is the part worth reading slowly, because it's the part most coverage skips.
Can your spouse actually work?
The five-page Policy Paper never mentions spousal employment rights, not to allow it, not to restrict it. Hassans, Sovereign Group and Triay, the three firms that published detailed commentary on the new framework, are all silent on it too. We looked specifically for a Gibraltar-specific answer and found none. The honest answer is that the government has not said.
How big does the family home need to be?
The accommodation rule for the main applicant requires a 12-month rental as a primary residence, or a purchase, with no holiday lets allowed. Nothing published addresses bedroom counts or minimum space once a spouse and children are added to that household.
What happens to the family if the job ends?
The employee residency permit lapses if there's no new contract within 16 weeks of a Notice of Termination being filed. Nothing in the regulations says what that means for a spouse and children already resident under that same permit, whether they get their own 16 weeks, whether it's tied to the sponsor's clock, or whether it's handled case by case.
Where this actually stands right now
Most of what's above now sits in law. The Residency Regulations 2026 (LN 166/2026) came into force on 14 July 2026 and confirm the spouse-or-civil-partner-plus-children framework, administered via residency.gov.gi. The separate Gibraltarian Status and Immigration (Amendment) Bill, the legislation covering how long it takes to qualify for Gibraltarian Status and permanent residence, reached Committee Stage and Third Reading on 1 and 2 July 2026, its final stages, but had not been confirmed as passed as of 17 July 2026. The family and dependant details in this piece live in the regulations and the earlier Policy Paper, not in that Bill, the two are separate tracks entirely. What is still genuinely open, spousal work rights and the unmarried-partner question chief among them, is open because the regulations don't address it, not because it's still just policy.
If you're weighing the move
The salary threshold is the same whether you're moving alone or bringing a family with you. If you're at the stage of working out whether a Gibraltar job could actually work for your household, register your CV and let employers who hire relocating candidates find you directly.
Can my spouse and children move to Gibraltar with me if I qualify for residency through work?
Yes. The Residency Regulations 2026, now in force, allow a spouse or civil partner and children to accompany a residence applicant, and the £37,500 salary threshold does not need to be any higher to cover them.
Can my spouse work in Gibraltar once we've both moved?
Nobody has said, either way. The Policy Paper does not mention spousal employment rights, and none of the law firm commentary published since addresses it either. Until the government publishes something specific, treat this as genuinely unknown rather than assuming it works like a UK dependant visa.
What if we're together but not married?
A registered civil partnership counts the same as a marriage under the regulations. If you're not married and not in a civil partnership, the regulations don't say either way, so treat that as unresolved rather than a confirmed no. The 2-year durable-relationship exception that does exist in Gibraltar's rules applies only to partners of a Gibraltarian Status holder, a different route entirely.
How much does it cost to bring a spouse, exactly?
The Policy Paper describes a charge equivalent to the maximum employee's Social Insurance contribution, but does not state the actual amount or how often it's charged. That detail has not been published anywhere as of writing.
A general note: this is general information, not legal or immigration advice. The family and dependant provisions above are set out in the Residency Regulations 2026 (LN 166/2026), in force since 14 July 2026, building on the earlier HMGoG Residency Policy Paper. The separate Gibraltarian Status and Immigration (Amendment) Bill had not been confirmed as passed at the time of writing, 17 July 2026. Several genuine details, spousal work rights and the unmarried-partner question among them, are still not published anywhere. Check your specific situation at residency.gov.gi or with a qualified immigration adviser before making a decision that depends on any of this. Written 10 July 2026, corrected 17 July 2026.
