I am planning to come
I want to join family in the UK
Sample contentFamily routes are decided on evidence about your relationship and your finances. They take longer than most other visas, and they are refused more often for missing evidence than for anything else.
What the words mean
- Sponsor
- Your partner or family member in the UK. In family routes it is a person, not an employer.
- Financial requirement
- A minimum income or savings level your sponsor has to show. The amount and how you can show it both change.
- Genuine and subsisting
- The test applied to a relationship: that it is real and continuing, shown through evidence over time.
What to do first
Step 1. Work out which family route applies: partner, child, parent or adult dependent relative.
Step 2. Check the current financial requirement and which ways of meeting it apply to your sponsor.
Step 3. Start collecting relationship evidence early — it is judged over a period, not on one day.
Step 4. Check whether you need an English language test.
Step 5. Apply on GOV.UK, and expect a longer wait than a visit or study application.
What to gather
Evidence of the relationship over time: messages, photographs, travel, bills in both names
Your sponsor's payslips, employment letter or accounts
Bank statements matching those payslips
Proof of where you will live
Who can help
This is the route where an adviser most often pays for itself. The financial requirement has strict rules about what evidence counts, and the wrong document set is a refusal even when the money is there.
Find a regulated adviserSample content · written for review · not checked by a lawyer or against the Immigration Rules