Spousal Visa Application - original or copy documents?

My wife will be applying for a spousal visa from the US.

To meet the financial requirements I will be providing my bank statements, annual mortgage statement, P60, land registry proof of flat ownership, job contract,  and letter from employer.

Do I need to provide original bank statements? My Nationwide account only provides paperless but I can download PDFs and print those out, or order originals from them.

Also, I am not clear how these need to be submitted. Does she upload the documents to VFS, and if so how are orignals distinguishable from copies? I am not yet clear if there is an advantage to using the Priority services.

We are at the start of this process, so apologies for the newbie question 

Thanks for any asssistance

My wife will be applying for a spousal visa from the US.

To meet the financial requirements I will be providing my bank statements, annual mortgage statement, P60, land registry proof of flat ownership, job contract,  and letter from employer.

Do I need to provide original bank statements? My Nationwide account only provides paperless but I can download PDFs and print those out, or order originals from them.

Also, I am not clear how these need to be submitted. Does she upload the documents to VFS, and if so how are orignals distinguishable from copies? I am not yet clear if there is an advantage to using the Priority services.

We are at the start of this process, so apologies for the newbie question 

Thanks for any asssistance

The instructions state the following regarding bank statements.

.(v) be:
(1) on official bank stationery; or
(2) electronic bank statements which are either accompanied by a letter from the bank on its headed stationery confirming that the documents are authentic or which bear the official stamp of the issuing bank on every page.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-fm-se-family-members-specified-evidence

Your easiest option would be to order originals. The most recent date on the statement must be dated within the 28 days before you submit/pay for the online application.

You'll need a bit more than you've mentioned there. Can you post a list by category and we'll look it over for you? Financial, relationship, accommodation are the main ones.

Unless you are in no hurry at all for your result, it's best to do priority at this stage, it generally takes a good bit off the processing time.  I'm not sure how long it's taking at the moment though.

Thanks very much for the reply. We do not plan on applying for a visa until about July and have not started to look at the application form yet. She has some stuff to sort out in the US before she makes the move.

I'll post the list of all we intend submitting at that stage. Thanks very much for the invitation.

The expert help in these forums this so useful, and I'm very grateful to you and all the others who give up their time to provide it.

Hello again

We have started completing the spousal visa application form and would be grateful for some help with the queries below.

By way of background, I am a UK national and my wife is a US national. We were married last November in the USA after  an 11-year long distance relationship. We have seen each other about three times every year for about 4-6 weeks each time, sometimes she has come to the UK to see me, other times I have visited her in the USA.

We have not kept all our boarding passes, but could probably find emails confirming the flight bookings.

We have Skype messages going back 11 years (we Skype almost every day) and Whats App messages going back about three years.

1. Should we provide a selection of flight bookings and WhatsApp and Skype logs rather than trying to be comprehensive? e.g. some from the beginning and middle of our relationship, and some recent ones?

2. I understand that you should not include the content of WhatsApp and Skype messages. That would mean editing the logs. Is that okay?

3. Should we provide greeting cards sent to each other and, if so, how many and should this again be from the beginning, middle, and current periods of our relationship?

4. I cannot see any HO guidance that refers to text messages, greeting cards etc... is there any please?

5. As to the evidence I need to to support her application, should I use the scanning service in the UK provided by VFS Global? The link the HO provides in the online applicaton form does not work. Is this the correct page https://visa.vfsglobal.com/dom/en/gbr/supporting-documents and, if so, does this mean that I could attend at their London address  at 66 Wilson Street, and provide the documents to be scanned to them?

Thanks very much.

We have Skype messages going back 11 years (we Skype almost every day) and Whats App messages going back about three years.

1. Should we provide a selection of flight bookings and WhatsApp and Skype logs rather than trying to be comprehensive? e.g. some from the beginning and middle of our relationship, and some recent ones?

You should provide:
- all your flight bookings

- a small selection of Skype messages covering all 11 years, evenly-spaced. No more than 2-3 pages and about 60 messages total…so for 11 years, I would include 6 messages per year, 1 every 2 months

- a selection of WhatsApp messages covering the 3 years… same as for the Skype messages… no more than 2-3 pages total, with about 60 messages. So for 3 years, you want about 20 messages per year, approx 2 per month

2. I understand that you should not include the content of WhatsApp and Skype messages. That would mean editing the logs. Is that okay?

Yes, you just take screenshots of individual messages, showing the date, time and name, paste each one into a Word document and then crop out the actual message content… you should be able to get 20-30 messages on a page 

3. Should we provide greeting cards sent to each other and, if so, how many and should this again be from the beginning, middle, and current periods of our relationship?

It depends how many you have sent each other. Ideally you should include all of them, but if you have tons, maybe just include 1 or 2 per year

4. I cannot see any HO guidance that refers to text messages, greeting cards etc... is there any please?

Not really - they seem to have deleted the old guidance. Our advice is based on about 15 years of experience, helping thousands of people successfully apply for their spousal visas

5. As to the evidence I need to to support her application, should I use the scanning service in the UK provided by VFS Global? The link the HO provides in the online applicaton form does not work. Is this the correct page https://visa.vfsglobal.com/dom/en/gbr/supporting-documents and, if so, does this mean that I could attend at their London address  at 66 Wilson Street, and provide the documents to be scanned to them?

Your wife should be the one uploading the documents to the VFS Global website, though you should be able to log into the account too and upload from your end… so you can either scan and email all your documents to her, or just upload them yourself using her account.

The documents cannot be uploaded until after your wife has submitted and paid for the visa, created an account with VFS Global and has booked her biometrics appointment and has added any extra services like shipping label and priority processing (none of which should be done until you have all the documents ready to be uploaded).

The link for booking an appointment (she will need her visa reference number):
https://visa.vfsglobal.com/usa/en/gbr/attend-centre/usa-application-support-centre

Personally, I wouldn’t bother paying to get the documents scanned in person in London, since they can just be scanned and uploaded for free on the VFS site.


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Thank you very much. That's all extremely clear and helpful.

Just a heads up as this nearly messed our application. Any document must have been created BEFORE you submit your online application and not after. My payslip was dated a day after our application and we had to cancel and request a refund and do it again. They won’t consider any documents after the date of the online application.

Just a heads up as this nearly messed our application. Any document must have been created BEFORE you submit your online application and not after. My payslip was dated a day after our application and we had to cancel and request a refund and start do it again. They won’t consider any documents after the date of the online application.

Yes, that’s correct.

Your official application date is the date you submit the online application and pay for the visa…. So all your documents MUST be dated BEFORE that date, because you have to show you met all the requirements ON that date. This is the reason we say not to submit the online application until you have every single document in your hands and ready to upload, in order to make sure everything is dated before you apply online.

The following financial documents must be dated no more than 28 days BEFORE the online application date:
- latest payslip
- latest bank statement
- employer letter


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Yes, that’s correct.

Your official application date is the date you submit the online application and pay for the visa…. So all your documents MUST be dated BEFORE that date, because you have to show you met all the requirements ON that date. This is the reason we say not to submit the online application until you have every single document in your hands and ready to upload, in order to make sure everything is dated before you apply online.

Thank you both. That was a helpful warning Mr Man as I was not at all clear what the consequences would be if we had signed the decelration on the application form and paid the fee.

Are you unable to amend the application form after you have paid the fee e.g. to change the intended date of arrival in the UK? If that's the case it seems like the best thing to do would be to delay submitting the application until all documents were in place and then pay for priority consideration to minimise the risk of something going wrong with the intended arrival date.

Another couple of questions if I may. I work for a govenment department. One of the questions we need to answer in visa application form is the name, telephone number, postal address, and email address of my employer. Should I give the address of the pay and pensions department (who will be confirming my salary and length of employment etc) or the office address in which I am physically located? The other possibility would be the address of the HR department.

Secondly, I was formerly married, now divorced. As well as being a British citizen, I think my ex-wife also had Irish citizenship, but I am not sure. In the form we have to state if she has any other nationalities. We are no longer in contact, although I could call her if necessary to obtain the answer. Should I do that, or just say at the end of the form that it is possible she is a dual national?

Thanks once again.

Are you unable to amend the application form after you have paid the fee e.g. to change the intended date of arrival in the UK? If that's the case it seems like the best thing to do would be to delay submitting the application until all documents were in place and then pay for priority consideration to minimise the risk of something going wrong with the intended arrival date.

Yes, once the application form has been submitted, nothing can be changed on it. However, if you have put the wrong intended travel date, you can always make a note of the date you would prefer in a cover letter and hope that they honour it.

Having said that, the intended arrival date is just your requested date, and there is no guarantee you will actually be able to travel on that date - so what you want to do is put the EARLIEST possible date you are able to, or may wish to, travel to the UK.

- If the visa is granted before the date you put, the visa vignette will be made valid starting 7 days before the intended travel date.

- If the date passes before the visa has been issued, the visa vignette will instead be made valid starting 7 days after the decision has been made (to give enough time for you to receive it).

For example, you apply at the end of March and put a travel date of 15th June. Your visa is granted in April, but is not valid until 8th June... so you cannot travel until 8th June. However, if you apply at the end of March and put a travel date of 15th April, but your visa is not granted until 25th April, it will be made valid starting on 2nd May so you can travel from 2nd May.

Another couple of questions if I may. I work for a govenment department. One of the questions we need to answer in visa application form is the name, telephone number, postal address, and email address of my employer. Should I give the address of the pay and pensions department (who will be confirming my salary and length of employment etc) or the office address in which I am physically located? The other possibility would be the address of the HR department.

I would give the official head office address of your government department. I also work for a government department - our headquarters is located 250 miles from where I live and work, but if I was entering my work details, I would put the official address, phone number and email address of headquarters, not where I actually work.

UKVI should not contact your employer directly anyway - if they need more information they will contact the visa applicant by email and request that they provide further documents from the employer (basically they get you and your spouse to do all the legwork for them).

I imagine they only ask for your employer details in order to confirm that it is a legitimate company/department.

Secondly, I was formerly married, now divorced. As well as being a British citizen, I think my ex-wife also had Irish citizenship, but I am not sure. In the form we have to state if she has any other nationalities. We are no longer in contact, although I could call her if necessary to obtain the answer. Should I do that, or just say at the end of the form that it is possible she is a dual national?

If it's asking for other nationalities, I think the best thing to do would be to contact her to find out for sure, so that you can put a definite answer on the form, rather than just guessing or omitting the information.

Having said that, the intended arrival date is just your requested date, and there is no guarantee you will actually be able to travel on that date - so what you want to do is put the EARLIEST possible date you are able to, or may wish to, travel to the UK.

Thanks again. Is there a time limit within which she has to enter the UK, once the visa has been granted?

Thanks again. Is there a time limit within which she has to enter the UK, once the visa has been granted?

She will have 30 days to enter the UK from the date the visa starts.

The visa is issued in 2 parts:
1) a 30-day visa vignette sticker in her passport which allows her to enter the UK
and
2) a 33-month BRP card (the actual visa), which she needs to pick up from a designated UK Post Office within 10 days of arriving in the UK

If she cannot travel to the UK within the 30 days printed on the visa vignette, then she will have to apply for a new visa vignette in order to travel, which can take at least a couple of months to be processed.

So, you will want to put an intended travel date on the form that you know she will be able to travel to the UK within 30 days of.

Great, that's very clear. Thanks.

- a small selection of Skype messages covering all 11 years, evenly-spaced. No more than 2-3 pages and about 60 messages total…so for 11 years, I would include 6 messages per year, 1 every 2 months

I can only get about 10 Skype messages on a page (by taking a screenshot, cropping and pasting into Word). Any tips please? I can get a Skype log in a text file format which looks like like this.

name14/02/2022, 22:13:51
    <partlist type="started" alt=""
    callId="95dd33333-4f56-a230-a303639eca97"><part
    identity="hername"><name>xxxname></part><part
    identity="myname"><name>/xxxname></part></partlist>

I could submit lots of those lines, that but perhaps the actual image of the Skype interface is prefereable?

As always, thank you for the help.

Just take a screenshot of the name and date of the message on the Skype interface, crop it and paste it into Word... if you resize them, you should hopefully be able to get several on a page.

But if you can only fit 10 message on a page, then just go with 3 pages of 10 messages rather than 20, and do 1 message every 4 months instead of 1 message every 2 months.

Basically, as long as you show communication at regular intervals during the length of time you used Skype, it doesn't really matter if you include 30 or 60 messages.