Wife's Citizenship

Hi All,

I hope you are doing well.

Apologies if this question has been asked before please point me in the right direction and also if this is not in the right forum please move the thread appropriately.

I have recently become a British Citizen and following are my timelines:

March 2016 - Entered the UK for the First time using Tier 2 general visa
March 2019 - Applied for renewal of Tier 2 general visa as the initial visa was for 3 years
March 2021 - Applied for ILR
March 2022 - Applied for Naturalisation
June 2022 - Officially a British Citizen

I got married in June 2019 and my wife joined me in December 2019. It will be 3 years in December 2022 since she would have lived in the UK on a dependent visa and I wanted to check considering a spouse can apply for naturalisation after 3 years of being married to a British Citizen so can she do that in December 2022 or is it a different category of Visa that she will have to switch to? Or does the count of time period start I have become a British citizen?

Look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you and best regards,
HG

It will be 3 years in December 2022 since she would have lived in the UK on a dependent visa and I wanted to check considering a spouse can apply for naturalisation after 3 years of being married to a British Citizen so can she do that in December 2022

No she cannot. In order to apply for citizenship, she requires ILR first, which she can only apply for after 5 years residence on her current visa category.

or is it a different category of Visa that she will have to switch to?

No, she does NOT have to switch visa category. She can continue extending her PBS Dependent visa until she qualifies for ILR.

Or does the count of time period start I have become a British citizen?

Not sure what you mean. She needs 5 years on a dependent visa before she can apply for ILR. Once she is granted ILR, only then can she apply for citizenship. How long you have been British is irrelevant.

Hiya,

Thank you for your response. I was trying to understand the guidance on the link below where it says if one has been in the UK for 3 years and married to a British Citizen they may be eligible to apply for citizenship:

https://www.gov.uk/apply-citizenship-spouse

It does also say that you need to have Indefinite leave to remain and she can only apply for ILR once she has been in the UK for 5 years.

You can apply as soon as you have one of the following:

indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the UK
‘settled status’ (also known as ‘indefinite leave to remain under the EU Settlement Scheme’)
indefinite leave to enter the UK (permission to move to the UK permanently from abroad)

HGHGHG wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:23 am

Hiya,

Thank you for your response. I was trying to understand the guidance on the link below where it says if one has been in the UK for 3 years and married to a British Citizen they may be eligible to apply for citizenship:

https://www.gov.uk/apply-citizenship-spouse

Yeah it could be a bit confusing. You're right, you need to have lived in the UK for 3 years to be eligible to apply for British Citizenship.

But that is just 1 part of the requirements. The other parts that you've probably ignored are;

Before you can apply for British citizenship, you need to have been free from immigration restrictions. That is acquiring Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK (ILR). In order to achieve this, she needs to have done her 5 years, then apply and be granted ILR.

Because she's married to a Brit, she doesn't need to do the mandatory 1 year like you did and can apply immediately based on her 3 years residency and not 5 years.

Provided she meets other requirements.

Also notice the word "May be" eligible, not "would be" eligible!