No country charges more for permission to bring over a foreign partner of its national for settlement. UK visa application fees and immigration health surcharge often cost thousands of pounds. Yet, Britain remains an enticing and challenging destination and its attractions may well outweigh the cost of the project.
For partners of British citizens it is wise to compare different immigration routes as sponsored employment or Global talent routes may prove less costly than the spouse visa to the UK.
Under the partner route, it will take more than one visa application to settle in the UK permanently and become a British citizen. Here is a breakdown of the visa costs from the first application to settlement and citizenship.
If you are based overseas, the initial cost of applying for a UK spouse visa is approximately £4951. This amount is made up of the £1846 visa fee and £3105 Immigration Health Surcharge. You will be paying slightly more than the total of these fees, as you will have to make the payment in the local currency – there is no option to pay in British pounds even if you have a bank account in this currency. The UKVI site charges 5% above the standard exchange rage as well.
Applications currently take up to 24 weeks, so you may wish to expedite it to receive a decision sooner. Priority service costs additional £500. Priority service is only available if the application is straightforward and falls squarely under the immigration rules. If your application is more complex, paying for priority may not really have any positive impact on the processing time.
If you meet the mainstream requirements of the immigration rules, you will be granted a partner visa under the so-called 5-year route. The word “route” means something like a pathway to settlement. And 5-year route means it will take five years to become settled, as apposed to the 10-year route, which, as you may have guessed, takes 10 years.
Whether it is a 5-year route or the 10-year route, if the application is successful, you will have permission to enter the country and live in the UK for 33 months. That is, two and a half years plus three months to find your bearings.
After that you will have to ask for permission to remain in the UK for another 2.5 years, or 30 months on this occasion. The requirements for extension will be very similar to the initial requirements for entry clearance, except you will have to show a slightly higher level of knowledge of English.
The cost of this partner visa extension application is slightly less than the application for entry clearance – £1048 visa fee and £2587.50 for the Immigration Health Surcharge.
The application for extension has to be made from the UK and you cannot leave the country until a decision is made on the application. The processing time on this occasion is less than with the application for entry clearance. The standard of service is up to 8 weeks. But if you have travel plans it may be worth expediting the application and get it done with within about a week. Priority service costs an additional £1000. So, the extension application will cost roughly £3635 or £4635 if you need priority service.
We are still under £10,000 without priority service or just a little over if priority is essential.
Now, after five years of residence, you will finally qualify for indefinite leave to remain.
Indefinite leave to remain application costs £2885 in 2024, but in five years’ time it is likely to go up, even if it doesn’t look possible.
As with the application for extension of stay, priority service costs £1000 and you can get your settlement roughly within a week of applying.
The difference is that the standard of service for ILR applications is up to 6 months and you are more likely to be bothered by the timescale and be tempted to pay for priority.
So, here we – under the five-year route your total spending on the spouse visa and settlement should not exceed £12,000 – £15,000. Under the 10-year route, it will be close to £20,000-£25,000.
For comparison, sponsored employment under the Skilled Worker route may be covered by one visa application for the total duration of five years which will cost around £7500. After that you will be entitled to apply for indefinite leave to remain and British citizenship.
The cost of application for British citizenship is minute in comparison to the visa fees above – a one off fee of £1580.
By Helena Sheizon, Kadmos Consultants
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