Switching to Spouse Visa from Another Route

Who Can Switch, and Who Cannot

GOV.UK puts the general position briefly: if you came to the UK on a different visa, you might be able to switch to a family visa to stay with your spouse or partner, child or parent, and you can switch at any time before your current permission to stay expires.

It is more specific about when you cannot, and those are the parts worth reading closely.

If you are a visitor, or your visa is for 6 months or less

GOV.UK: "You'll usually need to leave the UK to apply for a family visa if either: you have permission to be in the UK as a visitor; your visa is for 6 months or less."

It then names the exceptions, and there are two. You might be able to switch inside the UK if you have either:

• a 6-month family visa as a fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner; or
• permission to stay in the UK for the outcome of a family court case or divorce.

The fiancé carve-out is the ordinary path, not a concession. A fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner is admitted for 6 months to marry or enter a civil partnership in the UK, cannot work or study during that time, and then applies inside the UK to extend as a partner once the marriage or civil partnership has taken place. That application is a switch, and it is expected.

If your partner is here temporarily on a work or student visa

GOV.UK: "You cannot apply for a family visa if your family member is in the UK temporarily on a work visa or student visa. You can apply to stay with them as a dependant instead." The partner sponsoring a family visa must be a British or Irish citizen, settled in the UK, an EU, Swiss, Norwegian, Icelandic or Liechtenstein citizen with pre-settled status who arrived before 1 January 2021, a Turkish Businessperson or Turkish Worker visa holder, a person with protection status, or someone given permission to stay as a stateless person before you became their partner.

If your permission has already expired

The switch must be made before the current permission expires. Where it has run out, the application is no longer a switch, and Appendix FM's suitability rules on previous breaches of immigration law come into play. GOV.UK notes separately that where the requirements cannot be met, an application may still be possible on the basis of a child in the UK who is a British or Irish citizen or has lived here 7 years and for whom leaving would be unreasonable, or on the basis that refusal would breach human rights.

The source for all of the above is the GOV.UK family visa overview and the partner and spouse page.

Requirements for the Switch

Switching to a Spouse visa means meeting all the standard Spouse visa requirements:

Genuine Relationship

The relationship must be genuine and subsisting, and you must both intend to live together permanently in the UK. GOV.UK asks for evidence that comes from the government, a bank, a landlord, a utility provider or a medical professional, that confirms the relationship, and that is less than 4 years old — a marriage or civil partnership certificate, a tenancy agreement, utility or Council Tax bills, a joint bank statement, or a letter from your doctor or dentist. Living together in the UK usually makes this part easier to evidence than it is from abroad.

Financial Requirement

The combined income of you and your partner must be at least £29,000 a year, or cash savings of £16,000 plus 2.5 times the shortfall must have been held for the 6 months before the application. The £29,000 figure has applied since 11 April 2024 and does not rise for children. If your partner receives one of the disability or carer's benefits GOV.UK lists, there is no minimum income figure at all and an adequate maintenance test applies instead. transitional arrangements may apply. See our financial categories guide to determine which evidence applies to your situation.

English Language

A first application on the partner route needs at least level A1 in speaking and listening. Switching from another route does not change that: it is a first application on this route, whatever came before. To stay beyond 2 years and 6 months the level is A2 if you passed A1 first time; settlement is at B1, rising to B2 from 26 March 2027.

GOV.UK says that if you have already proved your knowledge of English in a previous successful visa application, you may not have to prove it again — a Skilled Worker or Student application will normally have required a higher level than A1. The test still has to be on the approved list and the certificate must not have been withdrawn by the provider. See our English language tests guide.

Accommodation

Appendix FM requires adequate accommodation for the family, without recourse to public funds, which the family own or occupy exclusively. It is not adequate if it is or will be overcrowded, or if it contravenes public health regulations.

What a Switch Grants, and What It Does to the Clock

The length of permission is not the same as on an application from outside the UK, and the difference is easy to miss:

• From outside the UK: up to 2 years and 9 months (33 months).
• Switching or extending inside the UK: up to 2 years and 6 months (30 months). You can extend more than once.
• Fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner: 6 months, with no permission to work or study.

Where you are extending to stay with the same family member, GOV.UK says you will only get up to 28 days left on your current stay added to the new visa, so applying long before the expiry date does not add the unused time.

On settlement, GOV.UK is explicit: the earliest you can apply is after 5 years continuously in the UK on a family visa as a partner, and you cannot include time spent on any other visa or as a fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner. So three years already spent on a Skilled Worker visa do not shorten the 5 years; they sit alongside them, and the total time in the UK before settlement would be eight years.

One further point from the same page: where the financial requirement is not met and permission is granted on another basis, the earliest application to settle is after 10 years rather than 5.

After settlement, naturalisation as the spouse or civil partner of a British citizen has a 3-year residence requirement and no waiting period after settlement, against 5 years and a further 12 months for everyone else — see applying for citizenship.

How the Two Routes Differ

The routes carry different conditions, and the differences are worth laying out rather than ranking. On the partner route:

• GOV.UK says you can work and you can study, and there is no sponsor. No certificate of sponsorship, no salary threshold, no going rate for an occupation, and no restriction on which employer or which job.
• You cannot usually get benefits or other public funds. The permission carries a no recourse to public funds condition.
• The financial requirement is tested again at each extension and at settlement, and it is a household test rather than a test of your own salary. On a sponsored work route, the salary that matters is the one your sponsor pays you.
• The 5 years towards settlement start again from the grant of the family visa.

Which of those matters more depends on facts Rowan cannot see. Only a regulated adviser can advise on an individual case — see what that costs.

The Application Process

1. Gather evidence. Relationship evidence, financial evidence, English language evidence, accommodation evidence, and identity documents. See our Spouse visa documents checklist.
2. Apply online. Submit your application on GOV.UK, selecting the option to switch from within the UK.
3. Pay fees. Application fee plus Immigration Health Surcharge. See our Spouse visa cost breakdown.
4. Prove your identity. Either at an appointment at a UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services (UKVCAS) centre for fingerprints and a photo, or through the "UK Immigration: ID Check" app. GOV.UK tells you which when you apply.
5. Wait for the decision. GOV.UK says a decision inside the UK usually takes 8 weeks where you meet the financial and English requirements, and about 12 months where you do not. See our processing time guide.

What the Switch Costs

The application fee inside the UK is £1,407 per person, against £2,064 from outside. The healthcare surcharge for a grant of 2 years and 6 months is £2,587.50 for each adult and £1,940 for each child. GOV.UK notes that paying the surcharge does not make NHS care free: it puts you on the same footing as a resident, so you then pay what a resident pays.

Paying for a Faster Decision

This is where the family route differs from the work routes. GOV.UK's table of eligible applications inside the UK shows that a family visa application cannot use the £500 priority service for a decision within 5 working days. The only faster option inside the UK is the £1,000 super priority service, and only where identity is proved in person at a UKVCAS appointment — not through the ID Check app. From outside the UK, the priority service for a family application is £500 and takes up to 30 working days, not 5.

Applying before your current permission expires keeps your existing conditions running under Section 3C leave while the application is decided. See the full fees.

What About Your Current Job?

GOV.UK says that once a family visa is granted you can work and you can study. The route has no sponsor, so there is no certificate of sponsorship, no salary threshold tied to an occupation code, and no restriction on which employer you work for.

The timing matters, though. The new conditions apply from the grant of the new permission, not from the day the application is submitted. Until the decision, you are still on the conditions of the permission you already hold — sponsored work stays sponsored work — and Section 3C leave continues those same conditions where the old permission expires while the application is pending.

One trade in the other direction: the family route carries a no recourse to public funds condition, and the financial requirement is tested again at each extension and at settlement. It is a household test, so a change in either partner's income bears on the next application.

Common Questions

What if we are engaged rather than married?

The fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner permission runs for 6 months, does not allow work or study, and does not count towards the 5 years for settlement. After the marriage or civil partnership takes place you apply inside the UK to extend as a partner, which is when those years start. GOV.UK adds a specific warning in the other direction: if you are already in the UK as an unmarried partner and become engaged, do not apply to extend as a fiancé, fiancée or proposed civil partner — apply to extend with the status you already have.

What if we are not married and not engaged?

GOV.UK lists four ways of proving the relationship, and marriage is only one. Living together in a relationship for at least 2 years at the date of application is another. So is having been in a relationship for at least 2 years where you cannot live together, for example because you work or study in different places or it is not accepted in your culture — in that case GOV.UK asks for evidence of an ongoing commitment instead of a shared address.

Can my employer stop me switching?

The Immigration Rules give a sponsor no part in an application on a different route. What does happen is that a sponsor has reporting duties of its own about people it sponsors, and those are the sponsor's obligations rather than a power over your application.

Questions and answers