Surinder Singh route for spouses and families of British citizens

By 1st 4Immigration - #1 UK Immigration Experts -
This immigration route, named after a person who filed a course case, can be used by non-EU family members of British citizens to secure a UK visa – but under the EU law. Normally, family members of EEA citizens, such as of Irish/French/Polish nationals, are applying using the European law. This is where they get an EEA Family Permit for 6 months outside the UK and/or a Residence Card for 5 years if applying inside the UK.

However, very often British citizens, or rather their non-EU family members, are trying to apply for a visa using the same route. After all, the UK is in the EU and British citizens are the EU citizens, aren’t they? Those who do try it often get a shock of being told that this routes does not apply to family members of UK citizens, only to those of EU (non-UK) citizens. Why? Because there has to be ‘movement’ between the EU member states and ‘British in Britain’ represents no movement!
 
On the other hand, there is one way around it: Surinder Singh route. It allows non-EU family members of British citizens to apply for a UK visa using the European law, as opposed to applying under the Immigration Rules. Let’s take a most common situation: a spouse of a British citizen. Under the Surinder Singh route spouses of UK citizens can apply for a Family Permit and/or Residence Card under the EU law and not under the Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules.
 
And who can blame them? Applying under the EU law means no English test and no  Financial Requirement (no need to prove the income of £18,600). Plus it is much cheaper, a Family Permit (if coming from outside the UK) is free of the official Home Office fee, compared to £885 fee for those applying under the Immigration Rules (fees in October 2014). A Residence Card (if applying inside the UK) costs only £55 as opposed to £601-£1,001 fee for an FLR(M) application! And getting a Residence Card for 5 years is the icing on the cake! That’s instead of a visa for 2.5 years, then extension for another 2.5 years (with another fee) for those under the Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules.
 
However, there are several conditions to meet, so we have outlined here the most relevant points.  We have added a new page on our website dedicated to the Surinder Singh route:
 
For an individual detailed advice please book our advice session, at our office or over email by the next working day.

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