Background: my gf lives in Argentina and we are due to get engaged and then I'd like her to move to UK so that we can get married shortly thereafter. Once we're married, I'd like to then also obviously arrange for a spouse visa.
As I understand it:
- She must apply for the Marriage Visitor Visa first
- She cannot apply for a fiancee visa (family of settled person) inside the UK (unless she was an EU citizen or had 5 year residency in UK?)
- We will have 6 months to get married, or otherwise under exceptional circumstances may apply for an extension
- The application will take 6-8 weeks to process
- Once successful, she may visit the UK for the purposes of getting married
- Once we get married, she has to leave the country again, then we can make a spouse application
- Once the spouse application is successful, she can move back
- From this period, once she re-enters on the spouse visa, she will be eligible to work
Questions I have about this:
- Are there any obviously incorrect assumptions in the above? eg. is there no way a non-EU national can apply from within the UK if they have the right to travel to the UK for up to 90 days (visa waiver program)
- I assume that she can also travel in and out of the country during the fiancee period (say, for example, if we chose to hold the ceremony in another country for which she held a visa to travel)
- If we get married well within the 6 month period, can we apply for the Spouse visa from within the UK, assuming that there is time for it to be granted before the end of the 6 months? (and if it isn't, can we have the fiancee visa extended to allow for us to await a response to an application?)
Thanks in advance - sorry if this is already answered elsewhere
https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/partner-spouse