Spouse visa is for married person whose spouse is one of the United Kingdom citizen. This visa is also known as United Kingdom Marriage Visa. Married partner of a United Kingdom citizen is allowed to apply for immigration under this visa category. You can apply for this visa from inside United Kingdom and from you home country as well.
Requirements
- Both partners should be at least 18 years old at the time of application
- You should get legally married and have proof for the same
- You are willing to live together
- Your spouse should earn more than £18,600 per year or can show enough funds to sponsor you. Funds requirements is more in case of sponsoring dependent children as well.
- You must have accommodation for you, spouse and dependants if any.
- You must meet English language requirements.
You can apply for this visa overseas or from within the United Kingdom. If you are already in United Kingdom on other kind of visa such as student visa, work visa, or fiancé visa, you can switch into this visa category. This visa application usually takes 2 – 12 weeks visa processing time from the date of visa application submission. Processing time might be different with different country from where visa application is made.
You can live and work in United Kingdom once the visa granted for 33 months if you have applied for the visa from overseas. If you have applied for the visa from within the United Kingdom, you can live and work in United Kingdom for 30 months.
You can apply for visa extension while at the point of current visa expiring for another 30 months. While spending 5 years in United Kingdom fulfilling maintenance requirements and making sure that you are still married and living together, you can apply for permanent resident visa i.e. indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Once you get permanent residency status, you are eligible to apply for British citizenship.
If English is not the first language in your country, you will need to meet English language requirements before applying for this visa category. You will need to make sure that you can speak and understand English while giving an English language test in your home country only.
In case of any dependent under age of 18, your partner will need to sponsor for the dependent. You partner should be able to demonstrate enough earnings or funding to get dependent in United Kingdom.
If your relationship comes to end before you get ILR, you will need to notify the UKBA stating that you are not in this relationship anymore. This depends upon authorities to cancel or continue our stay in United Kingdom based on other options of staying in United Kingdom.
