Visiting Visa for Spouse?

[Mobius1ne]

Hi, there! I'll try to keep this short.

I'm a citizen of the UK and have been since birth, my wife is Chinese and we got married two years ago (on Saturday!) in Shanghai, China. We were refused a spouse visa last year in November, mostly because they weren't satisfied with my salary and we need to show earnings as opposed to promised, second jobs.

I've been trying to find a secondary job recently to bump my salary up above that deadly £18.6k cap, but to no avail. My wife suggested we apply for a visiting visa. I've always thought against it because I thought they'd be reluctant to give her a visiting visa over concerns she'd overstay and always thought it would complicate things when trying to get a more permanent visa at some point.

I just can't bear to be away from her any more and I really want her to finally meet my family and get a taste for life over here, so the visiting visa sounded like a nice compromise - for now.

Basically I'm just trying to find out if my wife can come here on a visiting visa for a little while. I also understand that it's for three months but can possibly be extended to six. Any help or info would be greatly appreciated.

The UKBA site just makes things that little bit murkier and confusing for me, and I've had quite a good Google about it, but as of yet I have found out nothing and just got overwhelmed with info.

Thanks for reading, hope to hear something soon!

[Lucapooka]

It's not impossible but it won't be easy.

If your wife is in China because she has pressing commitments that currently prevent her settlement in the UK, or if you have pressing commitments in the UK that currently prevent your settlement in China (or anywhere else in the world), then a visit visa should be readily-obtainable because her social and economic ties to her homeland would be easy to show.

However, she has already applied for settlement and been refused, so it will be very hard to show that she actually intends to leave the UK after the visit. She is only applying to visit because she does not qualify for settlement rather than does now wish to settle at this particular moment in time.

So what are her strong ties to China that might motivate her return, given that you are her spouse and live in the UK (perhaps with no intention to change that situation)?

[Mobius1ne]

Hi! Thanks for your reply ~

Nah, she's not in China because she has commitments that prevent her coming here. She'd be able to leave everything at the drop of a hat should we be able to get a spouse visa. The only reason she's not here with me is because we weren't successful with our last application.

I totally get that the UKBA will be thinking that she's going to try and overstay or that this is our way of getting around a spouse visa application, but right now the only real thing tying her to China is her family and job (she can get a little time off to come visit me should she get a visiting visa). To me, this doesn't sound like enough, right? I told her she should think about asking her father to put something in her name, like their apartment or one of his businesses, so hopefully that'll sway the decision if she can do that.

Our 'plan' doesn't really have me going to settle in China, at least not yet. I need to study and we agreed it'd be easier saving money if we were both here at some point, also I'm not fluent in Chinese so that's another thing against me going there.

Also, how many payslips should we provide for her/myself for the application?
I've been working for six years so no problem from my end, but she only started her job two months ago.

I'm also a little confused as to sponsoring and what-not. Do they look at both of our money or just one? Her dad's gonna give her a whole lot of money for her visit here as a gift so should I even bother mentioning my salary etc.?

Anyway like I said, thanks for your reply. Is there anything else you can think of that could help show her ties to China?