Unmarried Partner Visa - why so difficult?

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Unmarried Partner Visa is one of the most popular enquiries in our practice. Yet the number of enquiries that we advise to progress to an application is fairly low - but that number is successful in securing a visa with our assistance. The remaining clients are advised to get married and apply for either a Spouse or a Fiancée visa, here is the page about comparison between them. 

Generally, with all applicants out there, this category does have a high number of refused (unsuccessful) visa applications because of the above reason - you have to qualify precisely for this category in order to be successful.

Why so?

Unmarried Partner visa is not a substitute for a Spouse or a Fiancé(e) visa. It has 2 criteria on the relationship:

Firstly, it is a visa for those who have lived together in a relationship akin to marriage for at least 2 years. Not dated, not visited each other, but actually lived together for minimum of 2 years. We often see couples who have lived together for, say, one year and dated for a year before that. This is unlikely to work!

Secondly, the couple has to be able to prove the above with the specified documents. Again, we often see couples who did live together but didn't have documents to prove it, such as if they happened to live in a country with a "cash economy " (often the case in the Philippines or Russia etc). Often all the household documents bear one partner's name only or the couple lived with the foreign partner's parents.

Whereas this visa category sounds attractive, it is important to qualify for the requirements. We have been working with this category for over 10 years and through our experience and expertise, we know what works and what doesn't.

We would be able to guide you through our advice session and then the application. If we don't believe you qualify for this visa, we will advise on the alternatives. We can help you make the right choice - book advice session with our experienced immigration lawyers on info@1st4immigration.com  You can also read Testimonials here.


1st 4Immigration Ltd, authorised by the OISC, ref 200800152. We operate at the highest Level 3 of expertise.

If you are an Immigration Adviser or a Solicitor please visit our immigration Training and CPD website: www.1st4immigration.com/training We have a weekend OISC Level 1 course every month, a Saturday Points-Based System course every month and we also have online training courses, including Online OISC Level 1 course and courses focusing on the British Citizenship and Spouse/Partner visas. All our training courses are CPD-accredited with CPD credit accepted by  OISC. 

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