1. Your relationship Expand Both partners must be over 18 at the time of applying, must have met each other in person and must not be in a prohibited relationship for marriage The sponsor must be either “present and settled” in the UK or have leave to remain because of refugee status or humanitarian protection. “Present and settled” means the sponsor must have British citizenship or Indefinite Leave to Remain, and either be in the UK when the application is made, or intend to return to the UK permanently once their partner’s visa is granted The Entry Clearance Officer (the Home Office official who will assess your application) must be satisfied that the applicant and the sponsor are in a “genuine and subsisting” relationship If you're married or in a civil partnership, it must be considered valid by the Home Office. A marriage will be valid if it was legal in the country where it took place, and you'll need to supply your marriage certificate. If you got married in another country and the certificate is not in English, you should include the original certificate and a translation with your application. If you’re using a translator based in the UK, make sure they’re registered with a professional body like the Institute of Linguists or the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, or that they work for a company that’s part of the Association of Translation Companies. If your certificate is being translated abroad, make sure the translator is a member of a professional body in that country If you are not married, you can still apply for an Unmarried Partner visa as long as you can prove that you’ve lived together for at least 2 years. You can do this by supplying documents like a letter from your landlord or letters addressed to both of you at the address where you live
2. The English language test Expand The applicant has to pass an English language test, unless they are a national of: Antigua and Barbuda; Australia; The Bahamas; Barbados; Belize; Canada; Dominica; Grenada; Guyana; Jamaica; New Zealand; St Kitts and Nevis; St Lucia; St Vincent and the Grenadines; Trinidad and Tobago; The United States of America Applicants are also exempt from passing the English test if they have a post-graduate qualification in a course completed in English. You’ll have to apply to an organisation called UK NARIC to get them to certify that the qualification is equivalent to a UK Bachelor, Masters or PhD – you can see all the details, including prices, here If sitting a test, the applicant must pass at least English Level A1 at one of the approved testing centres – you can find details of approved centres here If the applicant is over 65, or has a disability or other exceptional circumstances that stop them being able to pass the test, then they don’t have to show they meet the English language requirement. You will have to provide independent documentary evidence to show why the applicant can't take the English test
3. Your finances and living situation Expand Meeting the income requirement if you're in work The sponsor will have to meet the Minimum Income Requirement of at least £18,600. This rises to £22,400 if you're sponsoring your partner and a child who is a non-EEA national, and rises by £2,400 for each additional child. So if you're sponsoring your non-EEA partner and their 3 non-EEA national children, you must prove an annual income of at least £27,200. If your children are British nationals, you won't have to pay any extra - you'll have to meet the standard minimum income requirement of £18,600 a year Usually, only the income of the sponsor (the British citizen or settled resident) counts towards the income requirement. If you're in salaried employment (so you're paid a fixed amount per year, usually on a monthly basis), you will have to show 6 months of payslips. Make sure you are using the most recent payslips when you come to apply - the most recent document included in your application should be dated no more than 28 days before the date of your application. If you're in unsalaried employment (you are paid by the hour) or you are self-employed, you will have to prove your income for the entirety of the financial year before you apply If you don't currently have an income, you can still apply using savings. If you are meeting the income requirement through savings alone, you need to have at least £62,500 in savings. These savings have to be in cash - so they must be easily accessible liquid assets, not tied up in things like property. If you are applying using savings, an amount above the required minimum needs to have been in the bank account of the sponsor or the applicant for six consecutive months You can also apply using a mixture of savings and income, if for example you have an income but it is less than £18,600. To do this, you need to do some calculations. Work out your annual income, and then minus this figure from the income requirement to work out the difference. Then, multiply this by 2.5, and add 16,000 - the total is how much you'll have to have in savings to push you over the income requirement. This is because a spouse visa is valid for 2.5 years, so the Home Office wants to know that you have enough savings to keep you above the income requirement for the whole duration of the visa. These calculations can be tricky, so let's look at an example: The sponsor, who is applying for their partner alone, earns £15,400 a year, but has some savings available. To work out what level of savings the sponsor needs to show, the calculations are as follows: 18,600 (the Minimum Income Requirement without any children) - 15,400 = 3,200 3,200 x 2.5 = 8,000, plus 16,000 = 24,000 So the sponsor will need to prove that they have £24,000 in savings, as well as their income of £15,400. There are a number of other ways that income and savings can be combined. The rules on this are complex - should you need more information about this, you can find it here What if I'm working overtime or in more than one job? If you earn over £18,600 a year gross (your earnings before taxes), you meet the requirement, even if this income includes overtime pay or salary from more than one job. If the amount of overtime you earn fluctuates during the six months before you apply, you need to make sure your earnings push your basic pay over the threshold. To do this, add up the amount you earn each month and divide it by 6, then add it to your basic rate of monthly pay. For example: You earn a basic rate of £14,500 a year, but also work overtime to push you over the threshold. Over the six months prior to applying, your overtime pay was: February: £550; March: £240; April: £610; May: £550; June: £310; July: £185 Over the 6-month period, you earned a total of £2245 from overtime. To get the average over the 6-month period, divide this by 6: £407.50. Then multiply by 12 to get the annual average: £4890. Then add your averaged annual overtime pay to your annual pay - £14,500 + £4,890 = £19,390. So your normal earnings plus overtime pushes you over the income threshold. Accommodation requirements You also have to prove that you can provide "adequate" accommodation for yourself and anyone else you live with. So along with your application you should include a description of the property where you, your partner and any other person you share a property with will live, as well as documents confirming that you reside there. The description of the property is so the Home Office can check that it is "adequate," and that there are enough rooms for all the people living there. There should be enough rooms for everyone living in the property, bearing in mind that: A couple can share the same room You can include a living room when counting the number of rooms Children under 1 don't have to be counted Each child aged between 1 and 9 counts as half of a person Children who are 10 or over count as one person, and children of the opposite sex who are 10 or over should never have to share the same room So if you're living in a house with 3 bedrooms and a living room, your property is counted as having 4 rooms. If the residents are an adult couple, a 4-year-old and a 9-year-old and twin 6-month-old babies, this accommodation will be more than adequate - 1 room for the adult couple and one for the children, who each count as half a person. You can read the Home Office's detailed guidance on adequate accommodation here
4. What if I can't meet some of the requirements? Expand Exemption from the financial requirement You don’t have to meet the income requirement if you're on certain benefits. These are: Disability Living Allowance Severe Disablement Allowance Industrial Injury Disablement Benefit Attendance Allowance Carer’s Allowance Personal Independence Payment Armed Forces Independence Payment or Guaranteed Income Payment under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme; Constant Attendance Allowance, Mobility Supplement or War Disablement Pension under the War Pensions Scheme Police Injury Pension Sponsors who get one or more of the benefits listed above don’t have to show they earn £18,600 a year, but they do have to prove that they can maintain their partner. There’s no set level for this, but a judge in 2013 said that a couple should show that their income after accommodation costs is more than what they’d get if they were on income support. You need to: Work out your net income (how much you earn minus what you pay in income tax and National Insurance contributions). Then, take away what you pay for housing. The resulting figure (income minus housing) must be more than what an equivalent British family would be eligible for in Income Support So for example, a British couple over 25 could get £146.20 in income support a week, if they were both eligible for benefits. So the sponsor should show that his or her income, after tax and after taking off costs for accommodation, is more than £146.20 per week 'Exceptional circumstances' If you're not on any of these benefits and don't earn £18,600 a year yourself, you can ask to have other sources of income taken into account. However, they will only do this if you can prove that there are "exceptional circumstances" in your case. There is no fixed definition of "exceptional circumstances," but it is a high bar. You need to prove that the human rights of the applicant, the sponsor or a "relevant child" - a child who has a strong connection to the application - would be harmed if the application was refused. Proving this can be complicated, and you should seek legal advice if you're able to - you can try contacting your local Law Centre. Having exceptional circumstances does not exempt you from the financial requirement completely - you still need to show that you meet it, but can use a wider range of sources of income. The types of income you can use if you prove there are exceptional circumstances are: a credible guarantee of sustainable financial support to the applicant or their partner from a third party; credible prospective earnings from the sustainable employment or self-employment of the applicant or their partner; or any other credible and reliable source of income or funds for the applicant or their partner, which is available to them at the date of application or which will become available to them during the period of limited leave applied for In other words, things like financial support from family members or the salary of a job the applicant has been offered in the UK can be included, if the Home Office accepts that they are credible and is convinced that the human rights of the applicant, the sponsor or a relevant child would be harmed by a refusal. As always, it's important to supply as much documentary evidence as possible to back up your other sources of income and your claims regarding exceptional circumstances If you are going to rely on 3rd party support, then the support needs to be in the form of a letter, with full name and address details of the author, including telephone contact details stating that they are willing to be your third party sponsor. They will need to provide at least 6 months’ worth of payslips and relevant bank statements showing their pay going into their account. They will also have to provide photo ID. A contract of employment will also help. You can also apply citing exceptional circumstances if you don't meet some of the other requirements, for example because you can't sit the English test for some reason. To succeed in this type of application, you have to convince the Home Office that a refusal of the visa would cause "unjustifiably harsh" consequences for the applicant, the sponsor or a relevant child. Be aware that if you don't meet all the requirements but are still granted a visa, you will have to wait 10 years before you can apply for settlement (Indefinite Leave to Remain). This is called the 10-year-route. People who meet all the requirements first time round can apply for settlement after 5 years (the 5-year-route) - but regardless of what route you are on, you will still have to to extend your visa after 30 months in the UK by applying for Further Leave to Remain (FLR (M)). If you are applying for FLR(M) and are exempt from meeting the income requirement, or are using a third party's income because of exceptional circumstances, you might be able to apply for a fee waiver. This is for people who cannot afford the Home Office application fee and are applying based on their human rights. We've put together an information pack with details about who is eligible, what evidence to provide and how to apply.
5. How much are the fees, and what if I can't pay? Expand For 2020/21, the application fee for a spouse visa is £1523 if you're applying from outside the UK, and £1033 if you're applying from within the UK. On top of this, you'll have to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge, which is £1560 for a 2.5 year spouse visa. There are other costs you will have to bear in mind, such as the cost of translating a marriage certificate, taking a recognised English test or getting a qualification certified by UK NARIC. If the applicant is from certain countries, they will also have to take a tuberculosis test, which can cost over £100 depending on where they are from, and whether there is a Home Office-approved testing centre close by. Click here to find out if the applicant needs a tuberculosis test, and find details of an approved clinic where they can get a test. Fee waivers If paying the application fee and health surcharge will leave you struggling to pay for the basics, you can apply for something called a fee waiver. If this is granted, it means you can apply without having to pay the fees and the health surcharge. You can only apply for this if you are applying for FLR(M), where the non-British partner is already in the UK and is extending their leave. You can also only apply if the sponsor is exempt from meeting the financial requirement because they receive one of the benefits listed above. This is because all sponsors who are not exempt, even those who are using different sources of income because of their exceptional circumstances, still have to meet an income requirement, and therefore don't qualify for the fee waiver. If your sponsor doesn't have to meet the income requirement because of the benefits they are on, and aren't able to pay the application fee, you can apply for a fee waiver here. You will have to prove that paying the application fee is impossible, or would make you destitute. All forms of assets are taken into account. When applying for a fee waiver, you will have to provide details of your financial circumstances for the 6-month period prior to the application. This will mainly be in the form of statements covering the 6 months prior to the date of application for all bank or building society accounts, and a full breakdown of monthly income and expenditure at the time of application. Checks may be undertaken with agencies such as HM Revenue & Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions and Equifax to verify information provided as part of the application.