The five-year route, step by step
Most partner applications sit on what is called the five-year route to settlement, and understanding its shape removes most of the anxiety.
You are granted leave in two stages. A first grant made through entry clearance from outside the UK is 33 months; a grant made in-country, including every extension, is 30 months. The extra months on an entry clearance grant exist because the clock starts before you travel. After the two stages you will have completed five years, at which point you can apply for indefinite leave to remain.
Each stage has to be applied for, paid for and evidenced separately, and the requirements are not identical. The relationship must still be genuine and subsisting at every stage. The financial requirement must be met again. The English language requirement rises: A1 at the first grant, A2 at the extension, and B1 plus the Life in the UK Test at settlement.
The practical consequence is that this is not one application to survive but three, spread over five years, each with a deadline. People come unstuck at the extension far more often than at the first grant, usually because they assumed it would be a formality.
The financial requirement
This is where most partner applications fail, and it fails on evidence rather than on income.
The minimum income requirement for partner routes is currently £29,000, a figure raised on 11 April 2024. Figures in this area move, so treat that as correct at August 2026 and check the current position on GOV.UK or with us before relying on it.
What catches people is how narrowly the income may be proved. Appendix FM-SE prescribes which categories of income count, over what period, and in what documentary form. Salaried employment with the same employer for six months is the simplest case. Employment of less than six months, self-employment, variable hours, second jobs, income from savings and non-employment income all have their own rules, their own qualifying periods and their own document lists. Cash savings can be used to meet or supplement the requirement, but only above a threshold and only if held for a specified continuous period.
There are exceptions. Where the sponsor receives certain disability or carer's benefits, an alternative adequate maintenance test applies instead. And where the requirement cannot be met but refusing would breach Article 8 rights, particularly where a child is involved, the Rules provide for exceptional circumstances — a route that needs to be argued properly rather than merely mentioned.
If your income is anything other than a single steady salary, take advice before you apply. This is the requirement most worth paying a solicitor to get right.
Proving a genuine and subsisting relationship
Couples find this the strangest part of the process, and often the most upsetting: being asked to prove that a real relationship is real.
The test is whether the relationship is genuine and subsisting and whether you intend to live together permanently in the UK. Caseworkers assess it on the documents, not on how obviously in love you seem, so the evidence needs to do the work.
What helps is a picture built over time rather than a folder assembled last week. Correspondence addressed to both of you at the same address. A tenancy or mortgage in joint names. Joint accounts, or regular transfers between you. Utility bills. Travel to see one another, with the tickets and stamps. Photographs across the span of the relationship rather than one occasion. Messages, though a sensible selection rather than five hundred pages. Statements from family and friends who know you both.
For unmarried partners this matters even more, because you must also show you have lived together in a relationship akin to marriage for at least two years — and that means documentary proof of a shared address across the whole of that period, which is exactly the thing couples never think to keep.
One piece of advice worth more than the rest: start collecting now, even if you are not applying for a year. The evidence you cannot obtain later is the evidence you did not keep at the time.
The ten-year route, and when it applies
Not everyone qualifies under the five-year route, and the alternative is not refusal.
Where the requirements of the five-year route are not met but refusing would breach Article 8 of the European Convention — the right to respect for private and family life — leave may be granted outside those requirements on a ten-year route to settlement. It is granted in stages of two years and six months, and it takes ten years rather than five to reach indefinite leave.
It commonly applies where the financial requirement cannot be met, where there are insurmountable obstacles to family life continuing outside the UK, or where a child is involved and it would not be reasonable to expect them to leave.
The ten-year route is materially worse than the five: longer, more applications, more fees, and no recourse to public funds unless that condition is lifted. So where there is a realistic prospect of qualifying under the five-year route, it is worth working towards it rather than settling for ten. That is a judgement worth taking advice on before you apply, because the route you start on is difficult to change later.
What we need from you
Nothing needs to be perfect before you call. This is what a family application typically runs on.
- Identity and status documents Passports for both of you, plus your sponsor's proof of British citizenship or settled status.
- Proof of the relationship Marriage or civil partnership certificate, or two years of evidence of living together for unmarried partners.
- Financial evidence Payslips and matching bank statements for the required period, or the equivalent for self-employment or savings.
- Accommodation evidence Tenancy or ownership documents, and enough detail to show the home is adequate and not overcrowded.
- English language An approved test at the right level, a degree taught in English, or evidence of an exempting nationality.
- Immigration history Previous applications, refusals, overstaying — all of it. Tell us the bad parts early; they are far easier to deal with before an application than after.