Unmarried Partner Visa UK: Apply From the USA

If you want your application for the UK Unmarried Partner Visa to be successful, you need to prove that you and your partner will be able to support yourselves after you arrive, without relying on public funds.

Hence, before you can join them, your partner, who is living in the UK, needs to meet the financial requirement of a minimum income threshold. To do so, they will need to prove that their gross annual income (before tax) is at least £29,000.

This amount can be a sum of salaried and non-salaried income and can come from several sources such as cash savings, employed and self-employed work, property rental, or pension.

As part of your application, you must be able to show the Home Office that you and your partner intend to live together in the UK. For example, you must be able to show that you have arranged, or can arrange, suitable accommodation for both of you without relying on public funds. This could be in the form that you own a property in the UK, or that you have sole use of a property (rented).

In addition, the Home Office will also look at how much time you spend overseas and for what reason. For example, if you go on holiday for a short period, this does not usually affect your application. However, if one of you spends most of your time overseas, the Home Office may not accept your claim that you intend to live together in the UK.

When making a decision, they will consider whether you and your partner have travelled together outside of the UK and if you stayed or lived together whilst overseas. All Unmarried Partner visa applications are considered on a case-by-case basis, and therefore, there is no set rule, but you must intend to live together in the UK as a committed couple.

As part of your Unmarried Partner visa application, you are expected to provide evidence to support your claims. The exact documents required vary from case to case because different applicants have different circumstances; however, the more relevant documentation you can provide, the better.

The most common reason for Unmarried Partner visa refusals is due to the lack of supporting evidence, and so, to have the best chance of success, you should consider gathering your documents as a priority. Appealing a visa refusal decision can take months, and fresh applications are lengthy and costly, so it is highly important to get it right the first time.

When gathering documents, it is wise to try to get an evidential document that supports each claim in your application. For example, if you and your partner have lived together previously, or are living together now, you could include a rental agreement, or a council tax bill that has both of your names on.

If you have children together, you could include the child’s birth certificate that lists both your and your partner’s names, or, if you have previously been married, you could include a divorce decree to show that the previous relationship has ended.

To show that your relationship is genuine or subsisting, you may wish to include evidence of the time you and your partner have spent together. For example, you could include photographs of the two of you on holiday together, or a printout of your written correspondence. However, this kind of evidence is not usually strong enough to get granted a visa on its own, and you should try to include as much official documentation from official organisations as possible.

It is possible for US citizens to include dependents in the application for the Unmarried Partner Visa and bring them to the UK with them. Children under the age of 18 are treated as dependents so if you want your children to come live in the UK with you and your partner, you can apply for them to enter the country with you.

As of 2025, there are no additional fees and financial requirements associated with bringing dependents with you.

If you plan on bringing dependents, the application for them has to be made at the same time as the application for your own Unmarried Partner Visa.

For the UK Unmarried Partner Visa submitted from the US or another country that is not the UK, the Home Office set the fee at £1,938. If you are applying for a visa from within the UK, however, you can expect to pay £1,321.

The fee is also the cost applying to extend an existing Unmarried Partner Visa when it is about to expire.

If you are planning on taking dependents to the UK, the fees are the same as the initial visa fees. That means that if your application to bring a child with you is submitted from the US or another country abroad, you will pay an additional £1,938. If you’re submitting the application from within the UK, the additional cost will be £1,321.

Around 95% of all Unmarried Partner Visa applications are processed by UK Visas and immigration within 12 weeks from receiving them.

If your application is urgent, you can opt for a Settlement Priority Visa Service, where the processing time is no more than 30 working days. This service is offered by most visa application centers in the US.

If you already are in the UK and you are applying for the Unmarried Partner Visa to change your immigration status, you can expect to get the decision within 8 weeks when applying using the regular service. Applying via the priority service, on the other hand, can get you the decision as quickly as within a day of submitting the application and providing your biometric information.

The length of the Unmarried Partner Visa depends on whether you are applying from the US or you already are in the UK.

If you are currently in the US or in another country but not the UK, once you get the visa, it will be valid for 33 months. If, however, at the time of applying, you are in the UK, you can receive the visa for 30 months.

Many US citizens who come to the UK on the Unmarried Partner Visa hope to stay in the UK permanently and eventually apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain.

That, however, requires them to stay in the UK on the Unmarried Partner Visa and live with their partner for at least five years.

The initial 30 or 33 months of the visa’s duration is not enough to meet this requirement and make you eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. Fortunately, however, you can get a visa extension of additional 30 months.

US citizens are allowed to extend their Unmarried Partner Visa in UK when the first one is about to expire.

Once the initial visa period comes to an end and you wish to stay in the UK for longer, you will need to apply to UK Visas and Immigration to extend your stay. The failure to do that will mean that you will no longer have the right to live and remain in the UK.

If your application to extend your current Unmarried Partner Visa is successful, you will be granted a further leave to remain valid for additional 30 months.

When applying for the visa extension, you need to meet the same requirements as before, including the minimum financial threshold. You also have to still be living with the same partner you came to live with in the UK with in the first place.

After the additional 30 months of you being in the UK on the Unmarried Partner Visa pass, you will have been living in the UK for more than 5 years and you will be eligible to apply for the Indefinite Leave to Remain.

If your partner is British, a UK citizen, or has settled status in the UK, and you are in the UK on a different visa, you can apply to switch to an Unmarried Partner visa to lengthen your stay and perhaps gain Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the future.

However, you cannot apply to extend your stay if you are in the UK as a visitor. If you hold a UK Visitor visa and wish to stay in the UK with your partner, you must leave the UK and apply from overseas in your home country.

To switch to and be granted an Unmarried Partner visa, you will have to complete the application process and pay the application fee the same way as applicants from overseas do. You must also still satisfy all of the eligibility requirements as set out by the UK’s Home Office. You will need to apply before your current visa expires, and allow time for your application to be processed (usually around 8 weeks).

The Unmarried Partner visa is a potential way to gain settled status in the UK. To do so, you must first be granted an Unmarried Partner visa and ensure you stick to all of your visa conditions. You can stay in the UK for up to 2 and a half years on the Unmarried Partner visa, but should you wish to stay longer, you can apply to extend this.

If your application to extend your Unmarried Partner visa is successful, you will be granted an additional 2 and a half years’ entry clearance to remain in the UK. Once the 5 years (60 months) have passed in total, you may be eligible to apply for ILR (settled status).

It is important to note that to be successful in applying for an Unmarried Partner visa extension, you must still meet all of the visa requirements as set out by the Home Office. To be successful in an ILR application after the 5 years have passed, you will need to meet all of the above requirements and the additional requirements, for example:

• You are required to have lived with your partner for the previous 5 years, apart from good reason or exceptional circumstances.
• You must meet the English language requirement (CEFR Level B1), which is higher than the level required for your Unmarried Partner visa application.
• You must pass the Life in the UK test (unless exempt).

So long as you adhere to all of your visa responsibilities and conditions, the Unmarried Partner visa is a legitimate way to gain settled status (ILR) in the UK.