Spouse & Partner Visas

Who this service is for

• You are in a marriage or civil partnership, and your partner is British or settled in the UK
• You have not married, but you and your partner have cohabited continuously for at least two years
• You are engaged to your partner and intend to marry in the UK within six months
• You hold partner leave to remain, and are extending it or moving towards settlement

Basic eligibility

This is a general guide only; we confirm your exact position at the free consultation.

• Your partner is a British citizen, or holds settled, pre-settled or refugee status
• You are in a genuine and subsisting relationship, and can evidence it
• You meet the required income or savings level, properly evidenced
• You have access to adequate accommodation, and you meet the required standard of English

Documents typically required

• Current passports and immigration documents
• Your marriage or civil partnership certificate, or evidence of cohabitation
• Evidence of how your relationship has developed over time
• Evidence of finances — payslips, bank statements or savings held
• Evidence of your accommodation and English language ability

How the process works

What the Home Office is actually checking

Your application is judged in three parts, and each part is judged separately.

Your relationship. Not simply that you are married, but that the relationship is real and continuing. The rules call this a genuine and subsisting relationship. A certificate on its own does not prove it.

The money rules. The rules call this the financial requirement. The UK-based partner normally meets it through a salary, self-employment income, savings, or a permitted combination. There is a minimum figure. It is set by the government, it has changed several times in recent years, and we will not print it here, because a stale number on a page like this could cost you an application. You get the current figure, and the category you actually fall into, at your free consultation.

Your home and your English. You need somewhere to live that is not overcrowded under the legal standard, and an approved English qualification unless you are exempt.

Choosing the wrong financial category is one of the most common mistakes on this route, and one of the easiest to avoid. We settle that before a single document is gathered.

Where partner applications really go wrong

This is the part of the site we would most like you to read.

Applications on this route usually fail on the format of the evidence, not on whether the couple qualified. Income that genuinely met the threshold gets refused because the payslips did not match the bank statements, or because one statement was dated outside the required window. The money was there. The proof was not in the shape the rules demand.

The traps we see most often:

• Payslips that do not line up with the bank statements. If the amount landing in the account does not match the payslip, the caseworker cannot count it. Nobody will telephone you to ask why.
• A missing month, or a statement dated outside the window. The rules specify which period must be covered. One gap can undo an otherwise strong case.
• Relationship evidence bunched into one short period. Fifty photographs from one holiday prove less than bills, letters, joint commitments and travel spread across years.
• An English test taken with a provider that is not on the approved list, or taken at the wrong level for the route.
• Accommodation that looks overcrowded on paper, or no written permission from the person who owns the property.
• An old refusal or a gap in your immigration history left unexplained, rather than addressed openly in the covering letter.

Not one of these is about whether you deserve to be together. They are about paperwork. Paperwork is cheap to fix before you apply and expensive to fix afterwards, because the Home Office does not refund its fee when it refuses.

What we do, and what we cannot do

We start by checking whether you need us at all. If your case is straightforward and you feel confident, we will say so at the free consultation and you will owe us nothing.

If you decide to instruct us, we build the file with you, document by document. We check each bank statement against each payslip. We build a relationship timeline that covers your whole history rather than the last few months. We write the covering representations that tell the caseworker exactly where to find what they need, so nothing depends on them hunting for it.

We are regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority, and you should not simply take our word for that. Look us up on the public register before you speak to us. Giving immigration advice in the UK without authorisation is a criminal offence, and using someone who is not on that register leaves you with no way to recover what you paid them.

We also want to be clear about our limits. We do not run appeals, administrative reviews or tribunal cases, and we cannot promise you a decision. No honest adviser can. If your situation needs an appeal, we will tell you at the start and point you towards someone who can take it.

What it costs

You may already have been quoted a price that frightened you. Published rates for a spouse or partner application in the UK run from around £1,500 to £5,400. Most firms bill by the hour, which means that on the day you sign, nobody can tell you what the final figure will be. Many charge £300 to £500 plus VAT for the first meeting alone.

We charge £500. Fixed. The same £500 whether your case is simple or turns out to be complicated, and the same £500 if it takes us three times longer than we expected. The consultation is free.

Separately you will pay the Home Office application fee and the health surcharge. That money goes to the government, not to us, and the amounts change, so we give you the current figures in writing before you commit to anything. Depending on your circumstances there may also be an English test, document translation or a faster processing service to pay for. All of it is itemised before you decide.

The full picture is on our fees page, and you can build your own estimate with the visa cost calculator.

How long it takes

Processing time depends on whether you apply from inside or outside the UK, and on the country you apply from. The Home Office publishes current times and they move, so we give you the guidance that applies to your route rather than a number we half remember. We will also tell you honestly whether paying for a faster decision is worth it in your case. Often it is not.

Our own preparation usually takes two to four weeks from the point your documents are complete. If your current leave is running out, tell us at the consultation and we will work to that date. A real deadline is worth planning around. There is no other kind of hurry here.

Frequently asked questions