UK Family Visas: Your Complete Guide

The minimum income requirement for a UK Spouse or Partner visa in 2026 is £29,000 gross per year. This threshold applies to the sponsor — the UK-based partner — and has not increased since it was introduced in April 2024. The planned increases to £34,500 and £38,700 have been paused. If the sponsor cannot meet the threshold through earnings alone, cash savings can be used to bridge the shortfall using the formula: (annual shortfall × 2.5) + £16,000.

For applications made from outside the UK, standard processing is approximately 12 weeks. For in-country applications (extensions and switches), standard processing is approximately 8 weeks, though complex cases can take longer. A priority service from outside the UK (£500) targets a decision within 30 working days. Super-priority from inside the UK (£1,000) targets the next working day. The BNO visa and parent visa follow similar timelines. In-country applications for the parent visa can take up to 12 months in some cases.

Yes. All family visas under Appendix FM — including the Spouse, Partner, Parent, and BN(O) visa — grant full, unrestricted permission to work in the UK from the day the visa is granted. There are no limits on job type, employer, or number of hours. You cannot claim most public funds such as housing benefit or income support during your visa, but work and self-employment are permitted without restriction.

The standard qualifying period is five years of continuous lawful residence on the family route. This typically means an initial grant of 33 months (if entering from outside the UK) followed by one extension of 30 months. After five years, you can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain, which removes all immigration restrictions. The five-year route for spouses and partners of British citizens is confirmed as protected from the proposed earned settlement changes. The BN(O) route also remains on a five-year pathway.

The parent visa is for a non-British, non-settled adult who wants to move to the UK to care for their British, Irish, or settled child. The child dependant visa is for a child who wants to join their parent who is already in the UK on a work, study, or family visa. They are effectively opposite directions of the same family connection: the parent route brings the adult to the child's UK location, while the dependant route brings the child to the parent's UK location.

Only in limited circumstances. Since 22 July 2025, Skilled Worker visa holders in roles at RQF Level 3 to 5 (medium-skilled roles on the Immigration Salary List) are generally not permitted to bring new dependants. Exceptions apply if the worker has been continuously employed in that role in the UK since before 22 July 2025, is the sole surviving parent, or where the child was born in the UK. Care workers and senior care workers face a similar restriction in force since 11 March 2024. Workers in RQF Level 6 roles and above are not affected.

The BN(O) visa is a UK immigration route for Hong Kong residents who hold British National (Overseas) status — a form of British nationality available to eligible Hong Kong residents who registered before the 1997 handover. It allows BN(O) status holders, their spouses or partners, children, and certain adult children to live, work, and study in the UK, with a path to Indefinite Leave to Remain after five years and British citizenship after a further year. From 9 February 2026, adult children of BN(O) holders who were under 18 on 1 July 1997 can also apply independently.

Most spouse visa refusals carry a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, because the application engages Article 8 of the ECHR (the right to family life). The deadline for lodging an appeal is 14 calendar days if you are in the UK, or 28 calendar days if applying from overseas. Alternatively, if the refusal contains a casework error rather than a policy disagreement, an administrative review (£80) may be the faster option. The most common grounds for refusal are the financial requirement, insufficient relationship evidence, and undisclosed previous marriages.

The Government's proposed earned settlement model would increase the standard ILR qualifying period from five to ten years for most economic migration routes. However, spouses and partners of British citizens have been explicitly confirmed as remaining on the existing five-year route to ILR — the proposals do not apply to this group. The BN(O) route is also confirmed as protected. As of April 2026, the changes have not been written into the Immigration Rules and no implementation date has been confirmed — the Home Secretary indicated implementation will be "later in 2026" at the earliest.