Family Revisit

Hi Guys,

My family paid me a visit and returned back to their home country in February this year.
When can they revisit me again? I know they can stay for a maximum of 6 months at any one point. But I cannot find when can they revisit after that.

Thanks for your answers.

1664

1664 wrote:Hi Guys,

My family paid me a visit and returned back to their home country in February this year.
When can they revisit me again? I know they can stay for a maximum of 6 months at any one point. But I cannot find when can they revisit after that.

Thanks for your answers.

1664

A search of the forum would answer this - it's asked a lot.

Rule of thumb is six months in every twelve, so six months in, six months out. But be mindful of the 'genuine visitor' test, i.e. is the purpose to visit, or to reside and effectively live here half of the time.

I think that in an earlier post, Casa had summarised the rule-of-thumb as "should not appear to be spending more time in the UK compared to their home country". And that is the key thing. They should not appear to the ECO to be using the visit visa to effectively be living in the UK for six months of the year.

There is no "six month" rule that they can apply after six months and they will get a visit visa. It is all based on how the case appears to the ECO. They would look at the history of their travel to the UK. For instance, my aunt visited the UK for 15 days when I had initially come to the UK and then for 10 days 5 years later for my graduation. There were no problems because it was very apparent that there was no intent to settle or overstay.

I would guess that if your parents stayed the full six months of the visa, the ECO may want to know why they would want to visit so soon afterwards. Also, what is your status in the UK? If you are settled in the UK, you would need to give pretty bullet-proof evidence that they will return to the their home country at the end of their visit and not try to settle down with you.

Well, I did search and because I didn't find what was wanted I started a new topic. NO harm!

Thanks to you guys for responding. So If I understand if 6 months in a year as long as the reason is legit there is no reason you cannot visit again with in the 12 month period or get another visitor visit. In that case it all comes down to the case worker and his view of how he judges things.

Got It. Thanks again.

You were searching in the wrong forum. The forum that you should have searched in and posted this query in is the "General UK Immigration forum", where queries regarding visit visas tend to go. This forum is more for people who wish their partners/parents/other family members to move permanently to the UK.

Also, you may have misunderstood my post. The more often your parents come to the UK, the more likely it would be construed by the ECO that they are settling in the UK in the guise of a visit visa and the harder it will be for them to be issued a visit visa in the future.

Visit visas are meant to be comparatively rare. If you apply for them often, you may find that they get denied when you really want your parents to visit, such as for the birth of a grandchild if your child were to be born in the UK. The ECO will not just look at the legitimacy of the reason, but also the track record of the visits and if it appears that your parents are settling in the UK, irrespective of the legitimacy of the reason, the visa will be refused.

Remember that for visit visas, there is no right of appeal.