Use husband's surname for the spouse visa application

Hi. I am going to apply for the UK spouse visa next year and wonder if I can use my husband's surname for the spouse visa application.

I got married to a British citizen in the UK and then we moved to South Korea last year. In Korea, women do not really change their surname after marriage (it is quite difficult to change it and a bit strange to do as well). What we do on our passport is to show [First Name] [Surname] (Spouse of Husband Last Name), which is optional but I did update it on my passport.

My question is if I can use 'First Name My Surname Husband Surname' for my spouse visa applicaton. For example, if my full name is 'Emily Kim' and husband last name is 'Smith', can I say my name is 'Emily Kim Smith' in the visa application? On the copies of family relations and resident registration issued by the Korean government and written in English, my name in English is 'Emily Kim Smith', not 'Emily Kim (Spouse of Smith). Not sure if this is official enough to use 'Emily Kim Smith' for the application (And of course I have a marrige certificate from the UK as well as South Korea).

Thanks!

jungsy103 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:47 am

My question is if I can use 'First Name My Surname Husband Surname' for my spouse visa applicaton. For example, if my full name is 'Emily Kim' and husband last name is 'Smith', can I say my name is 'Emily Kim Smith' in the visa application? On the copies of family relations and resident registration issued by the Korean government and written in English, my name in English is 'Emily Kim Smith', not 'Emily Kim (Spouse of Smith). Not sure if this is official enough to use 'Emily Kim Smith' for the application (And of course I have a marrige certificate from the UK as well as South Korea).

Thanks!

Yes you can use your husband's surname which is a very common practice although is fully optional. For this purpose your passport and marriage certificate must be in your new married name. Also use the same name when undertaking A1/B1 ielts life skills test to meet the English language requirement.

Thanks a lot seagul! The main issue here is that my passport weirdly shows it as 'xxx yyy (Spouse of aaa).

I called up the ministry of foreign affairs, South Korea to talk about this issue. They said 'Spouse of ~' is the only option to show my husband's last name on my passport. I just hope this works in the British system. And I don't need to take IELTS as I've got degrees from UK universities

In my view it will still be accepted.

My wife is Chinese where similarly the wife keeps her family name. We married in China so our "marriage books" show her family name. She can have my name added to her passport but says she will wait until her passport needs renewing. We used her Chinese family name for initial spouse visa and FLR(M) with no issues. All correspondence is either in her name or jointly in both names. Council tax and utility companies were happy simply to add her name. Documents supplied did not cause any problems with visa applications. An added complication is that her son who lives in the UK with us has his Chinese father's family name, so between us we have three family names.