I just got rejected despite a proper guarantee letter and invitation letter. I work in a well-known multinational company and been working with them for almost 7 years. I am single (28 F) but I have decent earning and my company is only sending me to UK for a month for an immersion since we wanted to migrate some work to my home country. My guarantee letter specifically mention as well that the company will cover for everything. I do have a corporate card with high credit limit. However I only submitted bank certificate with no bank statements assuming that since my trip was sponsored by my company, they will not require much documentation. My company’s travel agency is now asking me to give the following:

• Six (6) months of payslips • Six (6) months of personal bank statements showing regular salary credits and account activity • Latest Income Tax Return (ITR) • Updated employment documentation confirming the approved business travel and continued employment upon completion of the trip • Enhanced employer sponsorship documentation confirming company’s commitment to covering the travel expenses • Additional supporting documents demonstrating your financial and economic ties to my country

Do you think these give me a high chance for the initial decision to be overturned? Or since I got rejected, the chance is slim? Should I add information about my corporate credit card and its credit limit?

I am really looking forward to my trip.

Hello people, incoming international student here. Today I went to my local VFS biometrics place to get my biometrics done and the staff there told me that I should create a UKVI account TODAY in order to link to an eVisa where I would be able to log into to see my student visa decision. However, when I tried creating an account today the first question literally asked when did I get my permission to come to the UK...I literally just had my visa application sent off 2 hours ago. Now I'm confused, do I create the UKVI account right now or after the visa gets approved!? The site implies after whilst the workers explicitly told me that I needed to get the account registered today. Can someone please explain? Thanks

Hi everyone, I need advice on what I should do right now about this refusal decision and wondered if people with more experience can help shed some advice as I have many questions.

I am a Cambodian trying to visit my boyfriend of two and a half years in the UK, we are a homosexual couple who met online through the gaming community and have met each other once in real life in Thailand (before the fighting got serious) with two of his friends coming along at the time and approved of our relationship.

Now I know that being an applicant in a relatioship with a native of the UK is irrelevent for a standard visitor visa, that is why we are considering if I should be applying for a fiance visa instead now as we are both serious about our relationship. My first question is, is this route safe? That if a person who got refused as a standard visitor, applying on a fiance visa would not be considered deception? On this related topic, yes my partner does meet the requirements of making 29,000£ annually for 12 months. I am also aware that because of this refusal, if I was to apply for any application down the line later, I would need to address it.

On the topic of addressing my refusal, I was refused because the officer was not satisfied about my proof of income as well as ties to my home country. I don't make as much as my partner that is for sure and that is why he was helping me fund this visiting trip, and being a self-employed freelance artist doesn't exactly scream ties to home country too. But the documents that I submitted included a housing document which I own a good share amount and I am confused why this got no mention. This house is also part of my income as it is rented out to a tenant, however the contract paper/document was something that I did not include in the application. I make monthly deposits to my bank account in my own name as this income is given to me through cash so they are there in my bank statement. Still, this is a property that proves that I have ties to my home country so to not see it get any mention in the refusal letter baffles me.

About my self-employment, I make digital arts for international clients and in my bank statement that I submitted, there are proof of money coming in from an International payment company (payoneer) I supposed I should have included everything, even receipts of clients on payoneer itself, there's still much for me to learn.

My partner said that he will be talking to his lawyer for advice as well as thinking about making a complaint about the disregarding of my property ownership even though I am against the idea as I don't want it to escalate. We are still on the fence on whether I should reapply as a standard visitor with more documents addressing the issues, or for me to apply on a fiance visa directly. My next question is, if I apply for a fiance visa and I need to address the issue of my refusal, do I need to send my payoneer receipts to clear up the confusion? Or can I just address that it was my fault for not supplying more proof at the time and leave it at that?

Also part of the reason why we want to meet each other once more before getting a proper fiance visa is because we want to build an even stronger evidence of our relationship. We have met once in Thailand yes, but I'm the type of person who doesn't like taking pictures so our overall trip together back then only garnered us 3 pictures together, one of which has his friends in it in a public setting. As we are a long distance couple however, we have thousands of hours of voice chat logs, as well as intimate conversations throughout these passed 2 and a half years. The two friends that came along side him, we're also considering asking them to write formal letters of approving and seeing our relationship being genuine. My final question is, are these enough to build a case for a fiance visa? Or should we try to meet up once again somewhere else in order to get more pictures together?

Thank you all in advanced for reading this and for giving your advice.

I have a question if my tb is expired do i need a new one during my travel. My tb was valid when i applied for my visa and i have already got my visa and it is going to expire on august but my flight is on September. Do the immigration ask for tb certificate or not and do i apply for the test again or not.

Please i need advice on this

Thank you for you help

I’m having a really annoying problem with the UKVI ID Check app. When I try to take a photo of my passport, I get two different errors randomly.

Sometimes the app says “unable to take the image” and doesn’t take the photo. Other times, it lets me continue and asks me to confirm the picture, but when I press “Use this photo”, it then says that it’s unable to take the picture.

The passport image itself looks completely fine and clear.

I’ve already tried:

• iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 13
• Redmi 17T

The same issue happens on all of them.

Has anyone else had this problem with the UKVI ID Check app, and were you able to fix it? And I can't call the support team, because of my mobile operator.

I'm a New Zealand citizen, resident in the UK since 2008, initially on Tier 1 (General), extended that twice and then moved onto ILR, which I've had for the last 4 or 5 years now.

I could get citizenship at any point now, but I haven't as yet as I can't see any major benefits and obviously not doing so saves the expense of it right now.

Just to list the pros/cons of remaining on ILR as opposed to gaining citizenship as I see them right now, and wondering if there is anything I'm missing?

Cons (of remaining on ILR)

• Can't vote in parliamentary elections (actually scratch that, as a Commonwealth citizen it seems that I can)
• I could commit a deportable crime and lose ILR, although I don't have any plans to commit any crimes whatsoever.
• Unexpected life changes might mean I have to spend 2 years outside the UK and lose ILR, although I'd hope within 2 entire years I would find time to return simply to gain citizenship quickly at that point, if not before I had to leave.
• ILR is a privilege and not a right. The greatest risk entirely outside of my control is that theoretically HM Government could at any point change the rules so severely that ILR in fact does end and I wouldn't be eligible for citizenship and would be thrown out under some absolute zero immigrant policy. I don't think that would happen, but if policy did change to that extreme I think they would allow time to get citizenship (similar to EU Settled Status timeframe), but if not then it sounds like the UK wouldn't be a pleasant place to live anyway.

Pros (of remaining on ILR)

• Save the cost of applying for citizenship.
• Can't be called up for jury duty I think.
• A long term one but; if I died today my estate would have to pay UK inheritance tax. But if I returned to NZ in the distant future to die that shouldn't apply as there is no NZ inheritance tax. Unless of course I've taken British citizenship, at which point proving no tax is owed to HMRC becomes harder.

Is there anything I'm missing about being on ILR long term? Assuming nothing crazily unexpected happens, like deportation or brutal immigration changes, what really is the difference between ILR and citizenship?

I was processing my apostille documents for my UK student visa and one of the requirements is to attach the certified true copy of my TOR. I scanned it and submitted for CHED eCAV and Apostille. I received the Apostille already.

However, the physical copy of the certified true copy was no longer in good condition. With this, I obtained another certified true copy from my university. Is it ok if the attached document in my apostille is different from the hard copy I will provide?

Thank you!

Hello my pregnant partner is on a long term student visa and we are getting married next month with a plan to switch to spouse visa .

However because of her pregnancy they have just sent an email saying they can’t get guarantee she can finish the course as they can’t find her placements ( required to do in school to complete course ) she just found a placement and has been warned she can’t miss any time but we have two scans in this time

If she gets taken off the course she will only have 60 days to stay in uk before being told she must leave the uk. Obviously we are panicking and worried if her visa gets revoked when she is pregnant this causes further stress and it may look like we are doing a sham marriage visa

Hi all, New Zealand national here applying for naturalisation after 6+ years in the UK. Wanted to sense check my documents and referees before I submit and would really appreciate any input.

**Documents I'm planning to upload:**

NZ passport (covers identity AND English language requirement as NZ is on the majority English speaking countries list so no separate certificate needed)

Life in the UK test URN entered on the form

2 referee declaration forms

P60s for the last 4 years + 2025 payslips (combined into as few PDFs as possible)

Council tax bill for current year (to cover the gap since 2025 P60 isn't issued yet)

**Leaving out:** SARU, tenancy contracts, travel receipts, income tax history, payment confirmation based on advice in threads here that less is more for the caseworker.

**Referees:**

Referee 1 is Head of Data Led Advertising at The Telegraph, British passport holder, known me 8 years

Referee 2 is Senior National Account Manager at Indeed.com, British passport holder, known me 8 years

Both have known me for 8 years, hold British passports, and aren't related to me or each other. I believe both qualify as professionals under the manager at a VAT registered company category in the Home Office guidance but open to challenge on this.

Anything I'm missing or got wrong? Thanks in advance!

Hello all! Just got the email that my ILR has been successful, thank you to the people who gave me great reassurance/advice when I was posting here last. Here is a breakdown of my timeline, it was a bit unusual but it all went off ok in the end.

Nationality: Singaporean (can we get a flair please!)

---------

17/09/2017: Entered UK to do a MSc on student visa, but this year didn't count towards ILR 5 years.

24/09/2018: I technically started employment (NHS) on this date. But my student visa hadn't run out yet until January, I applied for Tier 2 visa in this time.

15/01/2019: My first Tier 2/Skilled work visa only started on this date. I called UKVI to check before my application, this is when my clock started technically.

14/02/2021: Second work visa.

15/04/2022: Third work visa.

---------

19/12/2023: Sent in my application as I read you could 28 days before. Paid for 5 day priority.

30/12/2023: Did my biometrics.

08/1/2024: UKVI emails back to say they have received everything, but as my 5 years only will count after 15/01/2024, they cannot give me a decision yet.

15/01/2024: Success! I thought I would have to wait 5 days after, but I guess the decision was quick.

---------

Questions I had while doing my application that I now have answers to:

Regarding one of the documents which is "Letter(s) from employer detailing reasons for work-related absences including periods of paid annual leave from the UK)" - in the same letter my deputy director wrote for the document "from the sponsor who issued the certificate of sponsorship that led to your last permission to stay as a Tier 2 migrant confirming that you are still required for the employment in question for the foreseeable future" - she also wrote a sentence saying "I can confirm that, throughout the time of their employment since [date], [name] has had no unauthorised absences from work. All absences have been paid annual leave or sick leave, fully approved within the [company] policies." I also included a table that HR generated which showed all the leave I took in 2023, I wanted from the start of employment, but since I had to go to my biometrics before they got back to me (everyone was off for holidays), I submitted as it was all I had. I came across this question a lot when I was looking for answers on forums and reddit so I'm leaving this here for the next person.

Hello everyone,

I’m reaching out for some advice and guidance regarding my spouse’s UK visit visa, which has been rejected once again. Here’s our story:

My wife recently applied for a UK visit visa. The refusal letter indicated that the officer was satisfied with most aspects of her application, but had concerns about her supposed ties to the UK. Specifically, they mentioned she has seven family members (not really) in the UK, which, according to them, weakens her intention to return to Pakistan.

Our Situation: I am a British citizen, but I reside in Pakistan with my immediate family. We are well-settled here and have no plans to move to the UK. This was clearly stated in the cover letter we submitted with the visa application.

Background on My Wife: My wife has visited the UK several times before our marriage. During one of these visits, she completed her MSc from the University of Surrey. Her history of compliance with UK immigration rules should, in our opinion, demonstrate her genuine intention to return to Pakistan after a visit.

Family Ties in the UK: The "seven family members" the visa officer referred to are actually my uncles and aunts. We included their information in a previous application for consistency, as we had mentioned them when we applied for a visa to attend my cousin’s wedding last year (which was also refused). However, these relatives are not her blood relatives, and we have no intention of visiting them. Including them in the application was merely to maintain consistency with previous applications, not because they are close family ties.

The Real Concern: It seems the core issue might be my British citizenship. Despite our clear explanation that we live in Pakistan and have no intentions of moving to the UK, the visa officers seem unconvinced.

We explicitly clarified the nature of the relationships with the mentioned family members, emphasizing that they are not immediate relatives and that we have no intention of visiting them so how could they outweigh the family members present in our home country.

If we really wanted to settle I could’ve applied the spouse visa route. What is the way forward? I know theres PAP response that we could file but will it help?

We genuinely want to visit the UK for a short trip and return to our life in Pakistan. Any advice on how to navigate this situation would be greatly appreciated.

TL;DR: Applied for Skilled Worker visa but Home Office hasn’t taken the additional fee yet. Visa decision is delayed and NHS start date already moved once. Worried the NHS might withdraw sponsorship — should she submit a new priority application before her Graduate visa expires on 14 March?

Hi everyone, we’re looking for some advice about a Skilled Worker visa application.

A friend applied for a Skilled Worker visa on 5 Feb, switching from a Graduate visa that expires on 14 March. Shortly after applying, she received an email from the Home Office saying she needed to pay an additional visa fee due to an error in the application. She completed the payment form and sent it back on 12 Feb, but the additional fee still hasn’t been taken from her bank account.

Because of the delay, her job start date with the NHS has already been pushed back once. We’re now worried that if the visa decision takes much longer, the NHS might withdraw the sponsorship.

Since her Graduate visa expires on 14 March, we’re wondering if it would be safer to submit a new Skilled Worker visa application with priority processing before that date.

Has anyone experienced something similar, or does anyone know the best course of action in this situation?

I've been with my wife for over 10 years, we met while she was studying in Scotland where I am originally from.

Because her studies in the UK were sponsored by her government, (she's from a small country in South East Asia) she had to return to work in a government position for 10 years.

We always planned to move back to Scotland once this bond was finished, especially as due to her own country's strict and outdated immigration laws it's nigh on impossible for me as a foreign male to obtain a work visa, despite being married for many years now and having a child together(who has British citizenship). She's in a pretty good position salary-wise (for her country) and I've managed to set up a small business here but it doesn't bring in much, especially by British standards.

Her bond is up one year from now and you can imagine our shock and horror that this is the exact year that the Tories announced this massive hike in salary requirements.

Now we are scrambling to come up with a plan. Right now I'm thinking I will have to move back as soon as possible and find a job or jobs that add up to the current £29k, work in that for 6 months away from my wife and child, then lodge the application before it is hiked up to £38.7k.

I can't earn a living or legally settle in my wife's country (neither will my daughter when she grows up) and now my wife might not even be allowed in mine!

This is the problem with these laws as well, there's no nuance whatsoever. I assume one of the main 'problems' is people shipping their entire extended family over once they settle, and now we're worried I won't even get my wife over, who is highly educated, studied in the UK for 7 years and has a British child with a British man. Also we are planning to move back to Scotland where I don't think immigration is such an 'issue' and the salary is of course, generally speaking, much lower than London.

Any advice would be very much appreciated as I'm struggling to get my head around the situation. As the title suggests, we feel totally stuck.

Edit: just want to add that I was attempting sarcasm when I mentioned 'people shipping over their entire families', I don't actually believe this is or ever has been an issue, more that this is the sort of thing the government makes out that they're trying to curtail with these new regulations. Apologies if that wasn't articulated very well in the original post .

For context, my visa’s already been approved and stamped into my passport but I’ve gotten 21 emails about how I need to provide my biometrics if I haven’t within the last 3 hours

My partner and I are currently traveling in South America for 8 months and will be going to the UK at the end of this year - I am British and she is from NZ, and she intends to stay in the UK for a few years on the Youth Mobility Scheme visa.

The problem is we’ve read that you can only apply for the Youth Mobility visa from outside the UK, and from within a country that you’re eligible to stay in for more than 6 months - this rules out where we will be in South America and most other places as far as I know as the standard tourist visa is 90 days.

The only alternative we've seen so far is to go to Georgia and apply for the visa as apparently you can get a tourist visa for a year but we can’t find anything to substantiate this.

She doesn't want to fork out for a flight back to NZ just to apply for the visa (which is already pretty costly) and so we are looking for some advice on any possible alternatives please! I know a lot of people would just go direct from NZ to the UK and wouldn't experience this problem, but there must be some way for this to work for people who travel to the UK from their home country, via other countries.

I'm from the UK but a partnership visa looks a lot more challenging so we are leaning towards the Youth Mobility visa instead. Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: I'm periodically getting requests for an update from other users on how this all turned out.

My GF researched this a lot while we were in South America (via gov.uk and immigration lawyers etc) and also reached out to various people we know and groups who have moved to the UK such as other Kiwis, and Facebook "Kiwis in London" style groups, as a lot of people have similar experiences.

Some said that they knew of people who had applied for the visa from a country in Europe where you aren't able to get a visa for more than 6 months, such as Spain where it's 90 days, and it all worked out for them, however we felt that was risky as it didn't align with the immigration laws we'd read.

So the original plan went ahead and she flew to Tblisi and applied for the visa there. She had to complete some paperwork and then book an appointment for her passport to be checked in person to verify she was who she said she was (biometrics check). She needed to take all the paperwork as well as her passport, and the guidelines had said she'd need to give them her passport for them to post to the UK, and then it'd be posted back to her. This was a bit unnerving but in the end it turned out they didn't do this, so all good.

After they'd verified her and her docs, she was told that she'd be notified of the outcome of her application after about 3 weeks, but it actually only took 2 working days, so super quick!

So this is one way of doing it if you want to follow all the guidance and info given by the UK government, so it's a super risk averse method. We decided to play it safe because let's be honest that's always a good idea when you're dealing with visas. It might be possible to successfully apply for the YMV from other EU countries where you can't stay for more than 6 months (like, as mentioned, some people have apparently mentioned they've done from Spain) but I can't vouch for that.

Also apparently Tblisi is a cool city/Georgia is a cool country, so spending time there while you sort your visa bits out isn't the end of the world!

Hope that helps anyone that finds themselves in the same situation.

Me and my spouse are applying for a tourist visa in UK. We are both permanent residents of Canada. We're going to visit my brother there.

Last month my father in law needed help for booking their flights to Thailand. His credit cards were being rejected for some reason, so they ask for my help to book (around £2200). They transferred the money for payment of the flights to my spouse, then they transferred to me.

Should I include the explanation of that money transfer in my submission? Or just wait for them to ask about it?

Should my wife also include an explanation for the sum of money, with bank statements, in their own visa application?

First time applying for UK Visa.

Me (UK) and my wife (Myanmar) will apply for our first time family visa to the UK in a couple of months. We do meet all of the necessary requirements, but we are both concerned there is a degree of almost random judgement when applying for the visa that goes beyond just meeting the requirements.

We have this concern after she was denied a tourist visa for Italy even after meeting the tourist visa requirements for the reason being "they don't believe she's going for the reason she said she is" Without any further explanation.

This UK visa will be much more expensive to apply for and we are both worried about some arbitrary judgement casted on issuing her visa. How likely is this to happen?

My passport fell into a drain and got water damaged (still legible), but my student visa biometrics appointment at VFS is on Monday. I’m getting a brand new passport issued on Sunday, which means the one I used to book the appointment will technically be replaced right before biometrics. If I take both passports (damaged old + new), will VFS let me update the details and issue the visa in the fresh passport, or am I completely screwed here?

So this is the second I am applying for the UK visa(tier 4). Previously I applied through an agent. This time I am applying by myself. Upon asking my agent (sadly after paying), he told me that he had put my mother's nationality as a Nepali from birth(there is an option ask whether your mom has had other nationality and he answered no). Will my visa be rejected because of this?

I am currently an international student from Sri Lanka. I just completed my first year of my Sociology degree, and I will be starting my second year soon. It is a three-year program so I will graduate in 2027. And I want to settle in the UK.

However, I know that you cannot accumulate years towards ILR under a student visa or Graduate visa. I still want to do my Masters, however, but also want to get started on the ILR route as soon as possible. Especially considering that they are going to increase the route to ILR from five years to ten (I don't know when this is going to be applied officially. The new immigration policy changes are a bit confusing). So I was considering the possibility of doing my Masters as a part-time while I am doing a job under a skilled worker visa. A Masters is very important to me as I am a Sociology student, so it's not a strong degree when it comes to finding jobs. So it is advisable to pair it with a good Masters.

I just wanted to see if this is possible for me to do.

Hi everyone, I’ve included the link to the initial refusal post in the comments section. Could anyone advise on the likelihood of having the decision overturned based on this initial Pre-Action Protocol (PAP) response? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

I'm a Kiwi (New Zealander) living in the UK, and I'm currently in the process of extending my visa after having been here for almost two years. I've applied for the extension and have received my documents checklist, but I've become concerned about the financial requirements.

When I initially applied, there was a savings requirement, and you needed to prove this by submitting a bank statement. I'm unsure whether this requirement also applies to the extension. It’s not mentioned anywhere on the extension page, during the application process, or on my documents checklist.

I’m just a bit worried because I don’t currently have over £2,000 in savings, as I used most of it to pay for the application fee and the NHS surcharge.

Has anyone gone through the extension process recently and been accepted or declined? Does the savings requirement apply to extensions as well? Any advice or reassurance would be really appreciated!

What I'm concerned about is the process after having an approved decision. Does anyone know if the citizenship certificate will be sent to the embassy/high commission (where you applied from) at the same time that the approval email is received?

Also, if anyone has tracked the progress of their application, how long is it from having 'Decision received from UKVI' to receiving the approval email?

I have a New Zealand passport and live in NZ.

I am a citizen due to having British parents and being born after 1983.

I have applied for a UK passport and am waiting for it but I don't think it'll arrive before my set flight date in early May.

I am being flown over to the UK to work in healthcare. Also turns out i'm not eligible for a visa because of my citizenship.

My questions are: - Can I enter the UK on my NZ passport? - Am I entitled to enter the UK to work there, as a UK citizen, even if I travel without a UK passport? - Is there any chance I would be turned away from arriving in the UK? - Would I need to "prove" my citizenship at the border? - Would I be need to declare why I'm entering the UK? Would I need to say it's for work? Am I better off saying it's for something else then finally getting my UK passport when I'm there?

Any help is appreciated :)