Reform UK’s Britannia Card — a proposed scheme to entice wealthy non-doms to Britain by charging a £250,000 fee for a favourable tax status — has certainly generated conversation. Critics say any benefits from attracting more wealthy people here will be dwarfed by revenue losses from non-doms who stayed put cashing in. Yet step outside that technocratic squabble and Reform may have stumbled upon an intriguing principle: replacing bureaucratic hurdles with a simple price tag to determine who can live and work in Britain.

Why limit this approach to millionaires and billionaires? Reform’s primary aim is reducing immigration. Whether you think that wise or desirable, only three economic levers exist to achieve it. You can control migrant quantity, through the rationing of visas. You can restrict migrant entry using “quality” controls — a euphemism usually involving income thresholds, skills assessments and mounds of paperwork. Or you can take a leaf from the late economics Nobel laureate Gary Becker and simply charge migrants an upfront price.

If you’re going to increase immigration barriers, a simple entry fee has obvious benefits over quotas or points-based systems. By harnessing the law of demand, a fee that raises the cost of migrating here will certainly reduce immigration numbers. Yet it would do so by filtering for migrants whose uplift in earning potential justifies the payment, meaning those most likely to be big net fiscal contributors. Crucially, the decision to enter would be determined not by bureaucrats’ crude filtering, but by families, employers, and sponsoring charities harnessing their own knowledge in judging an individual’s potential.

There are broader advantages too. A reasonable entry fee reduces the incentive for migrants to pay smugglers, undermining some illegal immigration. Moreover, the Treasury could find itself with billions in new revenue, providing funds for public services or targeted tax cuts for communities strained by population growth.

Britain issued about 381,000 work and family-related visas in the year to March this year. Studies of migrants’ cost sensitivities suggest that a £15,000 flat fee — replacing the current system and all its administrative charges — might almost halve those inflows. The Treasury, in that scenario, would collect roughly £3 billion annually. Of course, fees could be fine-tuned by migrant type, age, or even extended to student visas, with every tweak reintroducing some complexity.

Admittedly, this is not a painless approach. Plenty of Britons will recoil at the thought of paying thousands extra to bring their spouse home. Predictably, industries reliant on low-paid foreign labour, such as care homes, would lobby furiously for fee exemptions or new government subsidies. And cultural concerns around immigration — often impervious to economic arguments — would likely remain unsatisfied.

Yet, let’s be frank: comprehensive solutions don’t exist on immigration — only tough trade-offs. The current rules already impose hefty minimum-income thresholds (£29,000 annually for foreign spouses) that price many Britons out of family reunification. Meanwhile, businesses’ needs for workers are today second-guessed by Westminster determining acceptable pay levels and whether industries face labour “shortages”. Few think this bureaucratic approach does well in “picking winners”.

Paying to migrate here isn’t that alien a concept either. Many migrants staying over six months already face a £1,035-per-year NHS surcharge. Broadening that principle is hardly revolutionary. True, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what an appropriate fee might be. Yet Reform could run an auction for a capped number of visas in year one to discover what the market says residency here is worth.

After all, the Britannia Card concept shows Reform would be willing to experiment. And if selling a favourable tax status to the rich is acceptable, why not work or family visas to immigrants? Yes, some will consider it vulgar or object to any new immigration restrictions. Yet Britain is hardly enchanted by its existing regime. And if Reform had secured a majority, the electorate would have already provided a mandate to reduce numbers.