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Wife needs to go to home country - How to maintain UK Residence Card?

Use this section for any queries concerning the EU Settlement Scheme, for applicants holding pre-settled and settled status.

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pamk1
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Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2019 3:21 pm

Wife needs to go to home country - How to maintain UK Residence Card?

Post by pamk1 » Sun Jul 07, 2019 3:53 pm

Hi everyone,

(I hope this is in the right forum section) :?

I would like to ask a quick question on behalf of my wife and I will outline the details first.

We moved to the UK on September 12th 2016 from Spain under the Surinder Singh immigration route as my wife is a non-EU citizen. She was granted a 5 year UK residence card and we had planned to live here for at least that amount of time and then apply for permanent residence.

However, my wife’s mother is quite sick at the moment and with no one else able to look after her it’s looking like my wife might need to go to her home country (Thailand) to do so.

This is very concerning for us as we don’t want to lose her UK residence card as a result.

I’m aware that there is a rule that she can not spend more than 6 months outside of the UK in any 12 months.

Is there a way my wife could go back to Thailand for say 5 months or so and then return to the UK for a couple of weeks and then go back again to continue to look after her mother? Would doing this work so that she could still keep her UK residence card?

I am very grateful of any help here.

Thank you

sfljiaf
Junior Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Dec 08, 2018 2:47 pm

Re: Wife needs to go to home country - How to maintain UK Residence Card?

Post by sfljiaf » Sun Jul 07, 2019 5:34 pm

This is an interesting question, I think returning even briefly should work, but I'd actually be very curious myself if someone more experienced could confirm this.

Also your wife could apply for pre-settled status, this would extend it to two years abroad without loosing the status I think.

Note however that either way you can only be away 6 months out of any 12 months to still qualify for PR / settled status after five years! So while your wife may not loose her status / residence card, only returning briefly every six months / two years will delay her getting settled status.

pamk1
Newly Registered
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2019 3:21 pm

Re: Wife needs to go to home country - How to maintain UK Residence Card?

Post by pamk1 » Sun Jul 07, 2019 7:42 pm

Hi sfljiaf,

Thank you for your reply :D

It's not so clear to find a answer for my question is it. I have been looking on Google etc but as you said, if by returning after 5 months briefly I wonder if that qualifies as a reset so that she can leave again for another 5 months. If that is the case then we can do that no problem, we just want to keep her UKRC alive :?

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