Your sponsor must be either a British citizen, Irish national, a person with pre-settled or settled status, Indefinite Leave to Remain, a person with a Turkish Businessperson or Turkish Worker visa or a person with refugee status or humanitarian protection.
This application must be made from overseas. Once you are in the UK and have married, you can make a leave to remain application. This is not the same visa category as the marriage visitor visa.
Applicants must meet suitability, validity and eligibility requirements. This includes meeting the genuine and subsisting relationship requirement, the financial requirement, English language proficiency and adequate accommodation.
You must also show you are coming to the UK to enable your marriage or civil partnership to take place within 6 months of your arrival.
You will need to provide evidence that your relationship with your partner is genuine and subsisting.
Decisions on whether a relationship is genuine and subsisting are made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all available evidence and individual circumstances.
Factors which may be considered by the Home Office when determining whether your relationship is genuine and subsisting include:
The Home Office would expect to see evidence of cohabitation. Further checks may be undertaken when they are not satisfied about the genuineness of your relationship and you may be called for an interview.
Unless exempt, you must demonstrate that your sponsoring spouse, or you and your spouse jointly (if you are already in the UK with valid leave and permission to work) have a gross annual income of at least £29,000.
There is no longer a separate child element to the minimum income requirement. The same threshold applies whether or not dependent children are included in the application.
If you applied under this route before 11 April 2024 and are now seeking to extend your permission, the previous lower income threshold outlined below will continue to apply:
Individuals who obtained a civil partner or spouse visa under the rules in place before 11 April 2024, will continue to be subject to the rules that were in place at the time of their initial application, even when applying for settlement.
When applying from overseas, only the income from your sponsor, i.e., the British citizen/settled partner, can be taken into account in most circumstances. However, both the applicant’s income and the sponsor’s income can be considered when relying on sources such as savings or non-employment income.
Sources of income that applicants can rely on to meet the financial requirement include:
In some cases, it is possible to rely on a combination of income sources to meet the financial requirement. Where an applicant relies solely on cash savings, without any additional income, the threshold is significantly higher under the rules introduced on 11 April 2024.
Different considerations apply if the sponsoring partner is in receipt of certain qualifying state benefits or entitlements. In such cases, the requirement is to demonstrate adequate maintenance and accommodation, rather than meeting a fixed income threshold.
In exceptional circumstances, where refusing the application would lead to unjustifiably harsh consequences and potentially breach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, UK Visas and Immigration may also take into account other credible and reliable sources of income, financial support, or funds available to the couple.
Unless exempt, you must meet an English language requirement as part of your Fiancé(e) Visa application.
For entry clearance, you need to demonstrate English ability at CEFR level A1. When later applying to extend your stay as a spouse (after 2.5 years), the requirement increases to CEFR level A2.
You can meet the requirement by:
Being a national of a majority English-speaking country;
Passing an approved English language test at the required level; or
Holding a recognised academic qualification taught in English.
You may be exempt if you are over 65, have a physical or mental condition preventing you from meeting the requirement, or there are exceptional circumstances.
If you cannot meet (or be exempt from) the English language requirement, your application will be refused.
Home Office processing times for these applications can be long. Therefore, it is crucial to thoroughly prepare your application and ensure accuracy from the outset to minimise the risk of greater delays. At Distinct Law, we have assisted many applicants in obtaining family visas and can advise on how to meet the financial requirement depending on your circumstances and available sources of income. We will look at your application holistically as there may be several viable options that should be considered.
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The Marriage Visitor visa and the Fiancé visa allow you to come to the UK to marry. The main difference is that the Fiancé or Proposed Civil partner visa is for partners of settled persons who have the intention of living permanently in the UK with their settled partner. If you do not intend to live permanently in the UK and just wish to get married and leave, you can apply for a Marriage Visitor visa instead of the Fiancé visa even if your partner is a settled person. If you are the fiancé of a settled person and wish to live in the UK long-term, you will not be able to switch to the Spouse or Civil Partner visa after you get married if you are here as a visitor. You must enter the UK as a Fiancé or Proposed Civil Partner to do so.
If you or your spouse spend the majority of your time overseas, this could cause the Home Office to doubt your intention to live together permanently in the UK. The Home Office will consider the reasons for travel, length of absence and whether you and your spouse travelled and lived together during the time spent outside the UK.
The Fiancé visa is for individuals that are engaged to a settled person and intend to get married within 6 months of arrival in the UK. The Spouse or Civil Partner visa is for individuals that are already married to a settled person and wish to come and live in the UK permanently with their spouse. Additionally, applicants that are granted a Fiancé visa do not have the right to work in the UK during the 6-month validity of the visa. They only acquire the right to work after they switch to a Spouse or Civil Partner visa.
If you or your spouse spend the majority of your time overseas, this could cause the Home Office to doubt your intention to live together permanently in the UK. The Home Office will consider the reasons for travel, length of absence and whether you and your spouse travelled and lived together during the time spent outside the UK.
If your marriage does not take place within 6 months and before your visa expires, you can apply to extend it for a further 6 months to allow the ceremony to take place, however you must be able to show there was a good reason for not doing so and that the ceremony will take place within the next 6 months.
If you or your spouse spend the majority of your time overseas, this could cause the Home Office to doubt your intention to live together permanently in the UK. The Home Office will consider the reasons for travel, length of absence and whether you and your spouse travelled and lived together during the time spent outside the UK.
