ILR to Citizenship - Civil Partnership between different sex couple

[gabriela0808]

Good afternoon. I have just received my ILR (previous visa was PBS Dependent) and my partner about 1 year ago got his British Citizenship after having his ILR for a few years. In Brazil, about 9 years ago, we signed a civil union agreement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union), which is the Brazilian civil partnership that can be signed by either same sex or different sex couples (which is our case).

I read that, if you are married or in a civil partnership with a British Citizen (which he is now), you can apply for naturalization as soon as you got your ILR. My question is, is the civil partnership document we signed in Brazil valid for this purpose? I saw on a few online articles such as https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/news/op ... hips-190k/ that civil partnerships are now accepted in the UK for different-sex couples, however, I found nowhere if this is already applicable for visa purposes or not. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks a lot!

[secret.simon]

is the civil partnership document we signed in Brazil valid for this purpose?

Unlikely. The foreign same-sex civil unions that are recognized as the equivalent of a British civil partnership are listed in Section 20 of the Civil Partnership Act 2004. Brazil is not mentioned in that Schedule.

As and when opposite-sex civil partnerships are made available in England and Wales (note that the legislation providing civil partnerships for opposite sex couples applies only to England and Wales), there will be accompanying regulations stating which foreign civil unions will be deemed the equivalent of an E&W civil partnership. It is likely that they will mirror the current set for same-sex civil partnerships and any changes will be to both sets concurrently.