Yes, but only if you are married. Gibraltar's new residency framework lets one qualifying salary, currently £37,500 a year, bring your spouse and children into the country alongside you, with no extra salary required per dependant. The spouse costs an additional payment tied to social insurance, children come free, and unmarried partners currently have no stated route in at all. The one question everybody actually wants answered, whether the spouse can work once they're here, is not addressed anywhere in the published policy.
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."
Two things sit inside that sentence. First, a spouse and children can come, with no separate salary test for either of them. Second, the word "only" is doing a lot of work: spouse and children, nobody else.
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: married only
Read the accompanying clause again: spouse and/or children, nobody else. There is currently no stated route for an unmarried partner of a work-permit holder, however long you've been together.
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 and neither of you holds Gibraltarian Status, the current published policy simply has no lane for you.
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 8 weeks of a job ending. Nothing in the published policy says what that means for a spouse and children already resident under that same permit, whether they get their own 8 weeks, whether it's tied to the sponsor's clock, or whether it's handled case by case.
Where this actually stands right now
Everything above comes from the Residency Policy Paper, published by HMGoG as administrative guidance rather than passed law. The Gibraltarian Status and Immigration (Amendment) Bill, the actual legislation going through Parliament, reached Committee Stage and Third Reading on both 1 and 2 July 2026, its final stages, but had not been confirmed passed as of the most recent check. The family and dependant rules covered in this piece are not even part of that Bill. They exist only in the Policy Paper, applied now as policy while the legislation catches up. Treat this as the current direction of travel, not as settled law.
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 Policy Paper states that a residence applicant "may be accompanied only by their spouse and/or children," 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?
The current policy has no stated route for an unmarried partner of someone on the employee residency permit. 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 announced administrative policy, not settled law, drawn from the HMGoG Residency Policy Paper, and several genuine details, spousal work rights among them, are not published anywhere yet. Check your specific situation with the Gibraltar government at gibraltar.gov.gi or a qualified immigration adviser before making a decision that depends on any of this. Written 10 July 2026.
