Immigrationboards.com

hi all,

Slightly convoluted situation and was wondering if anyone could shed any light:

I'm a full UK citizen and have been married to my wife (who's from Kyrgyzstan) for 10 years and we have two kids with UK citizenship. Five years ago we came to live in the UK after we'd lived abroad for a while. At the time we were living in Bulgaria and when we came back, we actually only came back for a holiday so used the non-EEA temporary visa as it was free to apply for. However, on coming back to the UK to visit, the business I was working for in Bulgaria collapsed and we decided to stay here.

Unfortunately, because my wife came in on a non-EEA visa, she was treated like the spouse of an EU rather than a UK citizen, and despite numerous phone calls, we were told that she couldn't move across to get a spousal visa for a UK citizen without leaving the country again and reapplying for the spousal visa. This wasn't practical for us either financially or logistically as we had two young children and for there are few places my wife can't go without an additional visa. In the end, time was against us and we settled for a five-year visa as the non-EEA spouse of an EU citizen.

Now my wife's visa is up for renewal and we could go the easy route and get permanent residence, which is she is eligible for after being here five years. However, we would really like to work towards getting her citizenship and was wondering whether there's any way for us to do that from within the country rather than having to leave and apply from outside. Again, this would be quite difficult for us logistically.

Any help/advice would be very welcome.

any way for us to do that from within the country rather than having to leave and apply from outside.

Apply from outside the UK for what exactly??

If she is on the EEA Family Permit route, she can apply for PR after 5 years and then immediately for citizenship as spouse of British Citizen once her PR is granted.

Perhaps provide bullet point details about entry dates and visa start and expired dates, exactly what her visa says ie type etc for more detailed advice.

For a spousal visa of a UK citizen. As far as I know, if she gets permanent residence as the non-EEA wife of an EU citizen, she can't move towards citizenship. Regarding her visa, it says 'Residence Card of a family member of an EEA National' and is valid for five years until March 2015.

Hello

first of all i like to apologies i am not trying to hijack this thread but i am in same situation so instead of making a new thread i thought i will just post here. once dreadnought001 question is answer please reply to mine as well if possible thanks.

i am living in UK for over 12 years on various visas but last 4 and half year i had EEA permit which is expire in December 2015. my question is can i apply for UK citizenship now or do i have to apply for PR first than UK citizenship and if so can i apply for PR now although i still got 10 month left on my EEA permit
thanks in advance

Regards

dreadnought001 wrote:For a spousal visa of a UK citizen. As far as I know, if she gets permanent residence as the non-EEA wife of an EU citizen, she can't move towards citizenship. Regarding her visa, it says 'Residence Card of a family member of an EEA National' and is valid for five years until March 2015.

Don't know where or who told you that. Of course she can apply for citizenship once she has Permanent Residence. She should apply for PR and then once that is granted (think postal only as EU route), then she can apply for citizenship as spouse of BC.

She does not have to be on the Spouse of BC (UK immigration) route to obtain citizenship.