Any other legal way to join UK boyfriend?

We met last year online, visited twice, and were planning on getting married and submitting for a spouse visa. But his health problems and other issues may prevent him coming here and us getting married. Is there any other legal way for me to join him there? I will never qualify for the tired work visa stuff, I dont make enough money. We just keep running into setback after setback, and it's taking a toll.

What about getting married in the UK instead?

It's a longer process to marry but if he can't travel it might be the better option.

You could either get a Marriage Visitor Visa to marry in the UK as a visitor, but you would need to return to the US after the wedding to apply for a spousal visa. It costs about £87 and is valid for 6 months, however, you would need to be able to spend at least 35 days in the UK (possibly up to 77 days) before you could marry.

Or you could apply for a 6-month fiancé visa to move to the UK, marry and then switch to an FLR(M) visa (in-country version of a spousal visa). The fiancé visa has the same requirements as the spousal visa except you show you are planning to marry in the UK instead of already being married. However you cannot work or study until you have the FLR(M) visa and you will not have NHS access on the fiancé visa either. The fiancé visa is valid 6 months and costs £1,195, then the FLR(M) visa is £1,311.

Or another alternative might be to marry in a different country, if he can travel there, and then you return to the US to apply for a spousal visa.


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Thank you so much, these are very helpful. We had looked into the Fiance visa, but I thought I read that I had to apply for spouse visa from my home country ( I thought I would have to come back). But there is a way to apply and stay in the UK the whole time?
Any insight on if I would be let in with a pet on a fiance visa? Was planning on bringing my cat.

The fiance(e) visa does allow you to remain in the UK after you are married and apply for FLR(M) - essentially, a spouse visa - within the UK.  You would not need to return to the US in this instance.

You can bring your pet over; I haven't done so personally so am not familiar with the actual process, but there are quite a few threads in the pets and/or moving section where people have detailed the process needed to move pets over.  Also have a look here:

https://www.gov.uk/take-pet-abroad/overview

But I don't think you can apply for the fiancée visa while you are in the UK.   You would need to apply from the US/home country.

Yeah, whichever visa you apply for - fiancé, spousal or marriage visitor visa, you must apply from the US.

The only one you can apply for from inside the UK is FLR(M) after marrying on the fiancé visa. So you would need to apply for the fiancé visa from the US, move to the UK, get married and then apply for FLR(M) in the UK.

But if you got the marriage visitor visa to marry in the UK, you would have to go back to the US again to apply for a spousal visa afterwards.


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Thank you much, that is so much clearer than my previous research!

And yes, no problem bringing kitty over on the fiancé visa.