Relationship Breakdown: What Happens to Your Visa?

If you are in danger now

GOV.UK publishes the helplines below on its page on how to get help with domestic abuse. Call 999 in an emergency.

• England — Refuge's National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0808 2000 247, with an online live chat.
• Wales — Live Fear Free: 0808 80 10 100, 24 hours a day, with live chat and text.
• Scotland — Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline: 0800 027 1234, with online chat and email.
• Northern Ireland — Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline: 0808 802 1414, with live chat and email.
• Men's Advice Line, run by Respect: 0808 801 0327.
• Victim Support: 24-hour supportline on 08 08 16 89 111, with live chat.

GOV.UK also names Women's Aid's directory and live chat, the Bright Sky app, and the Safe Spaces scheme in pharmacies and banks.

What happens to permission already granted

Permission granted as a partner does not lapse when a relationship ends. The Home Office guidance Partners, divorce and dissolution sets out the mechanism that can end it early, and it is narrower than it is usually described:

"Where a UK sponsor notifies the Home Office of the breakdown of their marriage or civil partnership during the period when their partner still has limited leave to remain or enter in that capacity, it is possible to consider whether that leave should be curtailed... Curtailment is not however automatic."

And there is a further condition on the Home Office:

"The Home Office will not be able to curtail leave on the grounds that the marriage or civil partnership has broken down unless the UK settled sponsor is prepared to make a disclosable public statement confirming the marriage civil partnership no longer subsists and that they do not intend to live with estranged partner in the future."

The same guidance records that "there is no right of appeal against any curtailment decision made on or after 6 April 2015".

Where permission is not curtailed, it runs to its expiry date on the same conditions. The point at which the breakdown decides the outcome is the next application: paragraph E-LTRP.1.7 of Appendix FM requires the relationship to be genuine and subsisting, and an extension cannot be granted on the partner route without it.

Where the breakdown is the result of domestic abuse

Appendix Victim of Domestic Abuse is a route to settlement, not to further limited leave. Its own summary: "This route allows settlement where a person has, or was last granted, permission as a partner on a specified route and the relationship has permanently broken down due to domestic abuse."

The core requirements

• Paragraph VDA 4.2: "The relationship between the applicant and their partner must have broken down permanently as a result of domestic abuse."
• Paragraph VDA 4.1 lists the permission the applicant must have, or have last been granted. The first and most common is permission as a partner under Appendix FM — expressly excluding permission as a fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner — of someone who is a British citizen, settled in the UK, or an EEA national with limited leave granted under paragraph EU3 of Appendix EU on the basis of condition 1 in paragraph EU14. Other sub-paragraphs cover partners under Appendix EU, partners of a person with refugee permission, certain partners under Part 8, partners under Appendix Armed Forces or Part 7, and people previously granted leave under the concession below.
• Paragraph VDA 4.3: an applicant outside the UK must have been abandoned outside the UK, and applies on the form "Return to the UK".

Applying

The form inside the UK is SET (DV), used both by the victim and by a child applying with them or separately. Paragraph VDA 1.3 makes the fee a validity requirement "unless the applicant has been granted a fee waiver". A refused application carries an administrative review under Appendix AR, and a successful one is granted settlement.

There is no qualifying period. The route is not tied to how long the applicant has held permission as a partner. Our entry on the route covers the evidence it is decided on.

The concession that bridges the gap

The Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse Concession, previously the Destitution Domestic Violence Concession, grants 3 months of leave outside the rules, on conditions permitting employment and with no prohibition on recourse to public funds. It is designed to make the settlement application possible rather than to be an end in itself.

From 16 February 2024 the concession was widened. It had previously covered a victim in the UK with permission as a partner under Appendix FM or Appendix Armed Forces; it now also covers a victim in the UK as the dependent partner of someone with permission on a work or study route.

The 3 months matter as a deadline as well as a support. Someone with pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme who is eligible under Appendix VDA can apply on form SET (DV) at any time, but loses access to public funds under the concession if the application is not made within the 3-month period.

You apply through the GOV.UK application for the concession. Our public funds entry covers what the condition otherwise blocks.

Where the abuse route does not apply

The Rules leave several other doors, none of them on the partner route itself.

As a parent

Appendix FM contains a parent route with its own eligibility requirements at paragraphs E-ECPT and E-LTRPT. Separately, GOV.UK states an exception that runs across the family rules: an application may still be possible where "you have a child in the UK who is a British or Irish citizen or has lived in the UK for 7 years and it would be unreasonable for them to leave the UK", or where refusal would breach human rights. That is paragraph EX.1, and it leads to the 10-year route rather than the 5-year one — our entry on exceptional circumstances sets out how.

Private life

Appendix Private Life is a separate route with its own residence thresholds. It leads to settlement on a longer qualifying period than the partner route, and permission on it counts towards the 10-year family settlement route under Appendix Settlement Family Life.

Switching to a work or study route

A switch is an application on the new route's own terms, meeting all of its requirements. On the Skilled Worker route those have moved since 22 July 2025: the general salary threshold is £41,700 or the going rate, whichever is higher, the skill level is RQF 6 for new applicants, and jobs below that level can only be sponsored where the occupation code is on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List. A Student visa or the Graduate route may be available where the underlying conditions are met.

Practical points from the published rules

• Know the expiry date on the permission held. The question the Rules ask is always about the date of application against that date.
• An application made before permission expires keeps the applicant lawfully in the UK while it is decided. GOV.UK: "You can stay in the UK until you've been given a decision, as long as you applied before your last visa expired."
• Overstaying is a suitability issue in its own right, with limited exceptions set out in Part Suitability of the Rules.
• Regulated advice. GOV.UK maintains a service to find an immigration adviser. Advisers are regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority, which replaced the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner on 16 January 2025. Rowan gives information, not advice; our entry on applying alone or with a solicitor covers the difference.

Related entries

• The Victim of Domestic Abuse route
• Divorce and separation on the partner route
• Exceptional circumstances under Appendix FM
• No recourse to public funds
• Settlement

Questions and answers