UK Fiance Visa for Filipinos

The UK Fiance Visa is one of the visas under the family visa category. It is designed to enable foreign nationals to enter the UK to marry a British citizen or settled person.

You may be eligible for this visa if you are from the Philippines and have a proposed partner in the UK that you intend to marry or enter a civil partnership with when you arrive in the country.

The Fiance Visa will permit you to stay in the UK for up to 6 months. The Home Office expects that you will get married or register your civil partnership during this time. Then, you can apply to extend your stay on the Spouse Visa route.

The Spouse Visa is valid for 30 months when switching from the Fiance visa. And if it expires, you can extend it for another 30 months. After 5 years on the Spouse Visa, you may be eligible for indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

Page Contents

• Overview: UK Fiance Visa
• Requirements for UK Fiance Visa from the Philippines
• Genuine and Subsisting Relationship Requirement
• Intention to Marry Within 6 months in the UK
• Accommodation Requirements
• Financial Requirements
• English Language Requirements
• Required Documents for UK Fiance Visa Application
• How to Apply for a UK Fiance Visa
• UK Fiance Visa Application Cost
• UK Fiance Visa Processing & Decision Waiting Times
• Duration and Renewal of a UK Fiance Visa
• Fiance Visa VS Spouse Visa
• How Can Total Law Help?
• Frequently Asked Questions

To be eligible for the Fiance Visa, you and your partner must fulfil specific conditions. These include:

• You must both be 18 years old
• Your partner must be one of the following:
• A British or Irish citizen
• An individual with a Turkish Businessperson or Turkish Worker visa
• Someone with indefinite leave to remain
• Someone with pre-settled status
• Someone with refugee or humanitarian protection status
• A stateless person
• You must prove that any previous marriages or partnerships have ended
• You must plan to marry or become civil partners within 6 months of arriving in the UK.
• You must prove that you have a genuine and subsisting relationship.
• You should be able to speak and understand English
• You should have adequate accommodation for you and your dependents.
• You should meet the minimum financial requirements.

To qualify for a Fiance Visa, you and your partner must prove with evidence that you are in a genuine and subsisting relationship. The Home Office typically decides on whether relationships are genuine based on the circumstances of each case.

A caseworker will consider certain factors like:

• The length of your relationship
• Whether you have children together
• If you have any shared financial responsibilities
• If you have physically met or visited each other
• Any plans you have concerning your living arrangements in the UK.

You must submit certain documents along with your application to prove that your relationship is genuine and subsisting. These documents must be from the government or a respectable authority and not over four years old.

Some acceptable documents include:

• Marriage certificate
• Tenancy agreements or utility bills
• A dentist or doctor’s letter.

Other evidence you can submit to strengthen your application includes documents of your correspondence together, such as text messages, travel tickets from visiting each other, or receipts of gifts to each other.

You can only apply for the Fiance Visa if you have plans to get married within 6 months of entering the UK.

A caseworker will want to see evidence demonstrating your intention, such as plans for your wedding and other arrangements you and your fiance have already made. The Home Office may not approve your application if you do not satisfy this requirement.

Also, note that you may be asked to leave the country if you do not get married within 6 months of your arrival.

You must also prove to the Home Office that you have adequate accommodation where you and your partner will live in the UK. Your accommodation must meet these requirements:

• Your apartment must be owned or occupied exclusively by you and your family.
• It must be sufficient to occupy your family and not be overcrowded.
• You must have the legal right to reside there and demonstrate so with a mortgage agreement, title deed to the property, or tenancy agreement.
• It must not be obtained with public funds.
• It must not breach public health regulations. You can provide a property inspection report to prove this.

To be eligible for the Fiance Visa, you and your partner must earn a minimum income.

The UK government recently announced new changes to the minimum financial requirement to £29,000

Under the new changes, you won’t need to meet any additional income requirements if you have dependent children. Furthermore, you must prove to the Home Office that you have this income using any of these:

• Income from employment earned in the UK.
• Cash savings above £88,500
• Money from a pension
• Non-work income, for example, from property rentals or dividends.

When applying for the Fiance Visa, you must demonstrate to the Home Office that you can speak and understand English either through:

• An academic qualification or
• An English language test.
• If you intend to use an academic qualification, it must be taught in English from a higher institution. If your certification is from a non-UK institution, you will need to get approval that it is equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree or higher.

But if you take an approved English language test, it must be at least at an A1 level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale.

You can only be exempt from the English language requirement if you are over 65 or have a medical condition that prevents you from taking the test.

You should prepare the following documents ahead of your Fiance Visa application:

• Your Filipino passport or travel document
• Copies of the photo page of visas and entry stamps from previous passports
• Your partner’s British passport or proof of right to be in the UK.
• A letter of sponsorship filled out by your UK-based fiance
• Proof that you meet the financial requirement
• Proof that you meet the English language requirement
• Proof of adequate accommodation
• Divorce or death certificates prove that any previous marriages or partnerships have ended.
• Evidence of a genuine and subsisting relationship
• Details of any previous immigration applications you’ve made.
• Details of any criminal convictions

You can apply for the UK Fiance Visa online. Here are the steps to submit your application:

1. Visit the UK government website and create an account.
2. Choose the appropriate visa category you intend to apply for.
3. Fill out the online application form.
4. Upload all supporting documents.
5. Pay the visa application fee.
6. Book and attend a biometric appointment at a visa application centre (VAC) to submit your biometric information
7. Await a decision from the Home Office.

When applying for a UK Fiance Visa from the Philippines you will need to pay the following:

• Application fee ( when applying from outside of the UK) – £1,938
• Recording of Biometric information: £19.20
• Immigration health surcharge fee: £1035 per year

Your visa application may take up to 24 weeks for the Home Office to process. You may be able to pay an additional fee to get a faster decision within 30 days. This is called the priority service, and you’ll be told if it’s available to you when you make your online application.

If your application is successful, your Fiance Visa will be valid for 6 months.

After your wedding or civil partnership ceremony, you should immediately switch to the Spouse Visa. When you switch to the Spouse Visa from within the UK, you will be able to stay for an initial period of 2 years and 6 months (30 months).

Post-Fiance Visa: Pathway to UK Citizenship

A fiance visa is the first step towards British citizenship and a UK passport. Once you have come to the UK on a Fiance Visa and married your partner, the next step is to apply for a Spouse Visa.

You can live in the UK for five years with a Spouse Visa as long as you renew it after its first expiry period. Once you have been in the UK for five years you can then consider applying for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status.

Note you can’t count time spent in the UK as a fiancé, fiancée, or proposed civil partner towards the ILR qualifying period and you must not spend more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12-month period in the five years.

If granted ILR then you can apply for British citizenship after a further 12 months, assuming you continue to meet the requirements.

Reach out to Total Law for more information on the path to British citizenship.

The UK Fiance and Spouse visas are both under the family visa category, but they serve different purposes.

The Fiance Visa is a short-term visa for unmarried partners. It is primarily designed to grant you entry to the UK to get married or enter into a civil partnership. Much like the Standard Visitor Visa, there are limits to what you can do on the Fiance Visa.

You cannot  work or study on a Fiance Visa. Additionally, any time spent on this visa will not count towards indefinite leave to remain.

On the other hand, the Spouse Visa is a long-term visa that grants you the permission to live, work, and study for as long as your visa is valid. It is designed for the foreign married or civil partners of British nationals or settled persons. Any time spent on a Spouse Visa will count towards indefinite leave to remain.

Note that both visas have the same eligibility requirements, including financial, accommodation, and English language. However, the visa you should apply for will depend on your circumstances.