Ancestry Visa Extension

[Ava Harrow]

Hi there,

I would appreciate any help anyone might have as I've tried to ascertain a definitive answer, but I'm at a loss.

I'm a 34 yr old UK national and my partner is a 30 yr old Australian national. We've been together 3 years. She's currently on a 5 year ancestry visa which is due to expire in July 2019. We are both working full-time, happily living in London with no fixed term plans to leave, however she can't apply for ILR due to spending more than 180 days out of the country, which means we need to extend her ancestry visa. We always knew it would come at a cost, but with the surcharge we're looking at over 3000 pounds? Is that right? It was only just over a 1000 a few years ago. Can I ask if I'm missing a trick here? I could appreciate such a cost if we were applying for her to live here indefinitely, so I'm wondering if we're submitting the wrong 'visa route' when calculating our cost. Can someone advise or help us? I work within the charity sector and my partner is a retail manager, so we're not exactly high earners so this is starting to prove incredibly stressful and we're completely in the dark!

Many thanks in advance.
Cheers

[zimba]

As the ancestry visa is granted for 5 years she must pay £2000 towards her IHS and £1,033 application fee.
As you can see poor planning will become costly for an immigrant in the UK. As you have been living together for 3 years, she may switch to partner route if you satisfy the requirements. Grante for 2.5 years, it will have lower IHS fees but stricter conditions to satisfy.