Settlement on the spouse visa route

The 5-Year Journey

The route runs in three stages:

1. First visa: 33 months if you applied from outside the UK — 30 months, plus 3 months to travel — or 30 months if you applied from inside it.
2. Extension: a further 30 months, applied for before the first permission expires. English rises from A1 to A2 at this stage.
3. Settlement: once the 5 years is complete.

For information on when your qualifying period starts, see our qualifying period guide.

Financial Requirement

GOV.UK sets the figure at a combined income of at least £29,000 a year for anyone who first applied on or after 11 April 2024. Someone who first applied before that date stays on £18,600, plus £3,800 for a first child and £2,400 for each further child, capped at £29,000. A sponsor receiving certain benefits — Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment and Carer's Allowance among them — is not held to an income figure and meets an adequate maintenance test instead. A figure of £38,700 was announced in 2023 and never made law.

The income can come from:

• Employment income: Salary from your or your partner's employment. See our Category A and Category B guides.
• Self-employment: Income from self-employment, properly documented with HMRC records. See our self-employment evidence guide.
• Cash savings: Savings above a certain threshold can be used. See cash savings guide.
• Combined sources: You can combine different income sources. See joint financial evidence.

For how the figure has moved, see our income threshold timeline guide. GOV.UK publishes the current rules on proving your income as a partner.

Relationship Evidence

At the settlement stage you have to show the relationship is still genuine and subsisting. Evidence includes:

• Proof of living together at the same address (council tax bills, tenancy agreements, utility bills in joint names)
• Joint financial commitments (joint bank account, mortgage, insurance)
• Communication evidence (if applicable)
• Photographs together from the qualifying period
• Evidence of shared life (holidays, social events, family occasions)

For more on relationship evidence, see our relationship evidence guide.

English Language and Life in the UK

To settle on this route you need:

• English at CEFR level B1 in speaking and listening, up from A1 at the first visa and A2 at the extension. Paragraph SETF 5.1 of Appendix Settlement Family Life raises it to B2 for applications made on or after 26 March 2027, a change laid in HC 1691 on 5 March 2026. See our guide to English for settlement.
• The knowledge of life in the UK requirement in Appendix KoL UK — the Life in the UK test — if you are 18 to 64.

Absence Rules

This is where the partner route differs from the work routes, and where a lot of writing about it borrows the wrong figure. GOV.UK publishes a 180-day limit on the settlement pages for Skilled Worker, Scale-up Worker, Innovator Founder and long residence. Its page on settling as a partner on a family visa publishes no day limit at all.

The Immigration Rules split the two partner routes:

• The 5-year route is paragraph E-ILRP.1.3 of Appendix FM: "a period of continuous residence in the UK of at least 5 years (60 months)" with permission as a partner. It sets no day limit, and Appendix FM is not one of the appendices that Appendix Continuous Residence applies to.
• The 10-year route is Appendix Settlement Family Life, which covers partners and parents settling after 10 years. Paragraph SETF 4.1 applies Appendix Continuous Residence: no more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12 months, except absences "for work, study or supporting family overseas, so long as the family have throughout the period of absence maintained a family life in the UK and the UK remained their place of permanent residence" (CR 3.4(g)).

See our travel and absence rules guide.

Separation and Domestic Violence

If your relationship breaks down before you complete the qualifying period:

• Domestic abuse: Appendix Victim of Domestic Abuse gives settlement with no qualifying period to a partner whose relationship broke down because of domestic abuse from their partner or their partner's family. GOV.UK says supporting evidence helps but is not needed to apply, and that the £3,226 fee can be waived if you cannot afford it. See our guide to the domestic abuse provisions.
• Bereavement: If your partner dies during the qualifying period, special provisions apply. See our bereavement guide.
• Separation: settlement on this route rests on the relationship continuing, so a separation ends the basis for it. Other permissions exist, including the parent route and the private life route. Which of them, if any, fits a particular set of facts is a question for a regulated adviser, not for Rowan.

Earned Settlement: Announced on 2 November 2026

On 2 November 2026 the government announced its decision on earned settlement, which makes 10 years the standard wait for settlement. It is not yet in the Immigration Rules: the Home Secretary told Parliament the changes will begin to be laid from the December 2026 rules and will be brought in during 2027. Until then, the rules on this page apply. For partners, the government's response to the consultation (CP 1707) sets out:

• Partners of British citizens keep a 5-year path. The response says a recognised British connection "will include eligible partners, parents and children of British citizens" (page 14).
• Partners of people who are settled but not British are not named as a British connection. The government's forecast includes about 223,000 people on family routes sponsored by a British citizen, who keep a 5-year path, and about 39,000 on family routes sponsored by someone who is not a British citizen, who move to a longer path (Annex A, page 46). The response does not say which path applies to them.
• The 10-year partner route. Permission on the Family and Private Life routes "will not qualify a person for the three or five-year settlement pathways" (pages 19 to 20).
• New minimum requirements for everyone, including B2 English, no criminal record in the UK, no outstanding government debt and the Life in the UK test (pages 4 to 8), and no specified public funds in the 5 years before applying, or a 20-year path instead (page 14).
• A couple's income. The response lists sustained contribution, earnings of £12,571 a year, among the minimum requirements. Couples can combine earnings to reach a household figure of £25,142 (page 13). This is separate from the partner route's own financial requirement.

Our guide to partners and children under earned settlement covers this in full, and our earned settlement guide covers the whole framework.

Costs and Processing

Settlement costs £3,226 for each person applying, and there is no fee for giving your fingerprints and photo. The healthcare surcharge is not charged on a settlement application, and there is no refund of surcharge already paid. A decision usually arrives within 6 months of your biometrics, and you must not travel outside the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man until you get it. See our cost breakdown and processing times guide.

After settlement, see our guide to the rights settlement brings and our guide to the route from settlement to citizenship.

Questions and answers