10 Common Mistakes – Financial Requirement for UK Spouse visa - #2 Who has to meet it when both partners are relocating to the UK after living abroad?
This is one of the most common scenarios in our practice, which leads to one of the most common misunderstandings of the Immigration Rules.
A typical situation: both husband and wife are residing outside the UK, let’s say in the USA or Australia or the Philippines (all very common in our work). At some point, they decide to come back to the UK for good. The foreign partner has to apply for a UK Spouse visa, which means meeting the Financial Requirement and £18600 threshold.
There is a lot of confusion on what kind of income can be used and who (which spouse) has to have that income. Getting it wrong leads to many visa refusals.
If you are trying to use savings or non-employment income (pension, rent from property etc), such income/savings can be originating from anywhere in the world and can be in the name of either spouse or in their joint names. For example, a husband may have savings in the USA and the wife – in the UK. One may have the pension from the UK, the other from Australia and both have savings in Australia or (as often happens) in an offshore jurisdiction like Jersey.
It gets tricky when you try to use employment income.
Firstly, when applying for an entry visa to come to the UK, only the British partner’s income from overseas employment can be taken into account. The non-UK partner’s employment earnings won’t be relevant at all, even if he/she is the one with high earnings. This tends to be a particularly common mistake when a foreign partner is a man and the British partner is a woman who was a staying-at-home mother. It may have been perfect sense for the husband (who is a native in his country) to work full-time and provide for his family but it “crumbles” the whole visa case.
Secondly, the British partner needs a confirmed job offer in the UK. Again, the non-UK partner’s prospective employment won’t be counted, even if he/she is the one with skills in demand in the UK.
Here we usually advise to concede non-employment options, such as savings. Or for the British partner to come to the UK on their own, find employment that pays a salary of £18600, work for 6 months and then for the foreign partner to apply for a Spouse visa from their country. It may take 6 months longer than you planned but it will fir into the Rules (particularly, when a UK job offer is impossible to secure while abroad). There is no fast service in most countries which reduces processing time with the authorities to approx 3 weeks. Better to wait than apply and get a rejection (and lose money paid in fees)!
Self-employment income is accounted in yet another, different way. Here it depends whether the business operates as a company or as a “person” (called sole trader in the UK) and whether the business is based (registered) in the UK or overseas.
There many ways that Financial Requirement can be met and how it is applied to the visa applications. In fact, we have a 75-page official guidance on how to apply just that particular aspect of a Spouse visa application.
For individual advice or to make an application, please visit our website: Spouse Visa page or contact us: info@1st4immigration.com. We respond emails on the same working day.
We also have posts “advising” Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on her UK visa. It’s fun to read but legally accurate and the cover the same Rules as would apply to an ordinary British-foreign couple, including the author of this blog, who had been through this process in 2003 and worked in immigration law since: https://1st4immigration-visas.blogspot.ru/search/label/Meghan%20and%20Prince%20Harry%20on%20her%20UK%20Spouse%20visa
1st 4Immigration Ltd, authorised by the OISC, ref 200800152. We operate at the highest Level 3 of expertise. Office address: 68 King William Street, City of London, London, EC4M 7DZ.
A typical situation: both husband and wife are residing outside the UK, let’s say in the USA or Australia or the Philippines (all very common in our work). At some point, they decide to come back to the UK for good. The foreign partner has to apply for a UK Spouse visa, which means meeting the Financial Requirement and £18600 threshold.
There is a lot of confusion on what kind of income can be used and who (which spouse) has to have that income. Getting it wrong leads to many visa refusals.
If you are trying to use savings or non-employment income (pension, rent from property etc), such income/savings can be originating from anywhere in the world and can be in the name of either spouse or in their joint names. For example, a husband may have savings in the USA and the wife – in the UK. One may have the pension from the UK, the other from Australia and both have savings in Australia or (as often happens) in an offshore jurisdiction like Jersey.
It gets tricky when you try to use employment income.
Firstly, when applying for an entry visa to come to the UK, only the British partner’s income from overseas employment can be taken into account. The non-UK partner’s employment earnings won’t be relevant at all, even if he/she is the one with high earnings. This tends to be a particularly common mistake when a foreign partner is a man and the British partner is a woman who was a staying-at-home mother. It may have been perfect sense for the husband (who is a native in his country) to work full-time and provide for his family but it “crumbles” the whole visa case.
Secondly, the British partner needs a confirmed job offer in the UK. Again, the non-UK partner’s prospective employment won’t be counted, even if he/she is the one with skills in demand in the UK.
Here we usually advise to concede non-employment options, such as savings. Or for the British partner to come to the UK on their own, find employment that pays a salary of £18600, work for 6 months and then for the foreign partner to apply for a Spouse visa from their country. It may take 6 months longer than you planned but it will fir into the Rules (particularly, when a UK job offer is impossible to secure while abroad). There is no fast service in most countries which reduces processing time with the authorities to approx 3 weeks. Better to wait than apply and get a rejection (and lose money paid in fees)!
Self-employment income is accounted in yet another, different way. Here it depends whether the business operates as a company or as a “person” (called sole trader in the UK) and whether the business is based (registered) in the UK or overseas.
There many ways that Financial Requirement can be met and how it is applied to the visa applications. In fact, we have a 75-page official guidance on how to apply just that particular aspect of a Spouse visa application.
For individual advice or to make an application, please visit our website: Spouse Visa page or contact us: info@1st4immigration.com. We respond emails on the same working day.
We also have posts “advising” Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on her UK visa. It’s fun to read but legally accurate and the cover the same Rules as would apply to an ordinary British-foreign couple, including the author of this blog, who had been through this process in 2003 and worked in immigration law since: https://1st4immigration-visas.blogspot.ru/search/label/Meghan%20and%20Prince%20Harry%20on%20her%20UK%20Spouse%20visa
1st 4Immigration Ltd, authorised by the OISC, ref 200800152. We operate at the highest Level 3 of expertise. Office address: 68 King William Street, City of London, London, EC4M 7DZ.
