Spouse Visa - Income requirement

Good evening,

I am a Spanish citizen with Settled Status in the UK. I have been living and working in the UK for 7 years and will become a PhD student in the same country in January 2020.

My partner is non EEA/Swiss national (Canada) and we are considering applying for the Spouse Visa in 2020. He has recently finished his PhD (3.5 years) and is currently doing a postdoc for a year, both in the UK. His extended Student Visa (Tier 4) expires in August 2020.

We are planning to get married in March/April 2020 and apply for a Spouse Visa soon after. I have read that the visa processing time is around 2-3 months, so if we submit the application in April we should be fine for August (in theory!).

My main concern is regarding the income requirement: The Gov website indicates £18,600 of combined income per annum, however, I have read in other websites that provide legal advice that £18,600pa is the salary that the sponsoring partner – me – should be earning. I am worried as I currently meet this requirement on my own, but this will change once I become a PhD student (funding is around 15,000pa). We should, however, be more than fine if my partner's salary was also considered in this income requirement.

Sorry if this has been asked before. I am finding contradictory information online (and found out through friends that the Gov website not always provides the correct information), so I would be extremely grateful if any of you had any comments on it.

Thank you so much in advance!

ritacamour wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 8:23 pm

We should, however, be more than fine if my partner's salary was also considered in this income requirement.

!

Yes your partner on tier 4 visa can combine his income with your income to cover the shortfall provided he doesn't be overworking than his working entitlement which is usually 20 hours a week on student visa.

Thanks a lot Seagul!

Depending on your personal circumstances and eligibility, you may also want to consider including your partner under the EU Settlement Scheme, which appears to accept both spouses and unmarried partners of EU citizens.

https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-ci ... ss-citizen

geoeng wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:15 am

Depending on your personal circumstances and eligibility, you may also want to consider including your partner under the EU Settlement Scheme, which appears to accept both spouses and unmarried partners of EU citizens.

https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-ci ... ss-citizen

Thank you! That is a great suggestion. Not sure why we ended up with the Spouse Visa as our first choice, having the pre-settlement option.

I understand that my partner would apply once we got married and just link his application to mine. Do you know if it's common for them to recontact me and ask me to submit additional evidence? I also spoke to a solicitor earlier today who adviced to apply for pre-settled status before April as that is when the Home Office tends to change the laws.

ritacamour wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 18, 2019 11:10 am

I understand that my partner would apply once we got married and just link his application to mine. Do you know if it's common for them to recontact me and ask me to submit additional evidence? I also spoke to a solicitor earlier today who adviced to apply for pre-settled status before April as that is when the Home Office tends to change the laws.

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with the settlement scheme or know much about it beyond its existence so I can't really help much in that regard. There is another forum section specifically for EEA-route applications that might have some more info though eea-route-applications/