Stamp 2 Renewal & Stamp 4 - Dual Application?

Hi all,

My partner is in the process of shortly renewing his Stamp 2 as he moves into his final year of university. This needs to be completed before the end of September when his course resumes again.

At the same time, we will also have documentary evidence that we have been living together for 2 years in-and-around October time. Our intention is to apply for the de facto partner (non-married) visa shortly after this, as I am an Irish Citizen.

We've known from experience that Stamp 2 renewals take some time, often several weeks after the course begins even though he had submitted it 2-ish months before the course begins. Once immigration come back to him with approval, they had back dated his new visa to be active from the day after his previous Stamp 2 expired. In short, we expect this to happen again.

This might mean there is a scenario where we will be submitting for his Stamp 4 De Facto visa whilst his Stamp 2 renewal is still pending. This sounds like a daft question, but is it possible to have 2x visa applications in progress at the same time or should we wait until the Stamp 2 renewal is approved and then proceed with the de facto visa application?

Seperately, can I also confirm if a de facto partner visa can only be done through a postal application? Are we sure it can't be done via in-person appointment considering he already has a pre-existing visa and we are both resident in Ireland? Lastly, does anyone have an idea of processing times for de facto visa's?

Many thanks in advance for any advise you guys can give!!

Not sure if you're in Dublin or outside Dublin, but the earliest you can apply is outside Dublin is three months - go for it as early as possible, even now would do it.

De-facto applications are taking a while to process, so you definitely can renew your existing permission (Stamp 2) while having de-facto in process.

You, most likely, can't do it in person; Burgh Quay was shut for everything but first time applications and I would assume GNIB follows suit. You can try to reach out to your local station (unless you live in Dublin, because see above) but in any case you won't be able to walk out with permission on the day, unfortunately.

Don't think there's a timeline thread for Irish de-facto; you can check EUTR one (where 1A is unmarried partner), but ISD may take longer for domestic applications.