Hello, myself and my fiancé are in the terrible waiting stage of the visa process and I just want to ask about other peoples experiences with recent processing times. She had her biometrics appointment on the 29th October and we paid for the 6-week priority processing. So hopefully that means we should receive her visa in the next week?
They say that it's a 30-working day processing time, but it's not guaranteed that it will be processed in 30 days. It depends how busy they are... last year, for example, I think priority processing was averaging about 40 working days.
I'm not sure what current processing times are like though, as not many people have applied recently.
Unfortunate we haven’t been able to track her application on VFS Global as it only shows us details of her application, not the tracking status. Is there another way to see if there has been an update with her application?
No, unfortunately, there's no way to track the application process... you just have to wait for the visa decision email/the passport arriving in the post.
Also, am I correct in the knowledge that there won’t be a formal decision letter/email, and she’ll just receive her passport and visa back in the post?
That's correct for an approved fiance visa - there's no approval letter, she will just receive her passport with a 6-month visa sticker printed inside it (assuming the visa has been granted. If however, the visa has been refused, there will be a refusal letter included, outlining the reasons for refusal.
They only send approvals letters out for visas which are valid longer than 6 months (i.e. spousal visas, work visas, student visas), because those visas are issued in 2 parts:
- 30-day visa sticker in the passport
and
- plastic BRP card which needs to be collected from a UK Post Office within 10 days of arriving in the UK
For those visas, the letter details how, where and when to pick up the BRP card.
