Spousal Visa Declaration of Funds Statement

Hi, my wife and I are applying for my first spouse visa to join her in the UK (I'm American and applying from the US, she's a British citizen already in the UK). We are almost finished with the online application and just preparing all of our supporting documents to upload. We're meeting the financial requirement through Category D cash savings.  I couldn't find any examples of how other people have written the declaration of funds statement, and just wanted to check that I've formatted it correctly. We also wanted to include an explanation of why I've sent her some large wire transfers (in order to build our savings in the UK for future purchases there, like hopefully buying a home next year).

We're also including information about my wife's employment among our supporting documents as evidence of the source of funds and her ability to support us in the future, including her work contract, letter from employer, and payslips. I'm wondering if I should also include these things for my own employment in the US mainly as evidence as to the source of funds. Thanks in advance for the help!


Our declaration of funds letter:

[date]

UK Home Office
Visa Department

Subject: UK Spouse Visa Application for [my name]

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

I am writing to declare that the funds in the following accounts were earned through my employment at the [place] and previous jobs held by me. In addition there has been the occasional small gift from my father [name] around Christmas and New Year, and transfers received from [my name] with the intention of building savings toward our life together in the UK where we hope to purchase a home and adopt children among other things.

- account 1
- account 2
- account 3

All of the accounts listed above are solely under my control and the funds within them can be accessed at any time.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


[wife's name]

Hi, my wife and I are applying for my first spouse visa to join her in the UK (I'm American and applying from the US, she's a British citizen already in the UK). We are almost finished with the online application and just preparing all of our supporting documents to upload. We're meeting the financial requirement through Category D cash savings.  I couldn't find any examples of how other people have written the declaration of funds statement, and just wanted to check that I've formatted it correctly. We also wanted to include an explanation of why I've sent her some large wire transfers (in order to build our savings in the UK for future purchases there, like hopefully buying a home next year).

We're also including information about my wife's employment among our supporting documents as evidence of the source of funds and her ability to support us in the future, including her work contract, letter from employer, and payslips. I'm wondering if I should also include these things for my own employment in the US mainly as evidence as to the source of funds. Thanks in advance for the help!


Our declaration of funds letter:

[date]

UK Home Office
Visa Department

Subject: UK Spouse Visa Application for [my name]

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

I am writing to declare that the funds in the following accounts were earned through my employment at the [place] and previous jobs held by me. In addition there has been the occasional small gift from my father [name] around Christmas and New Year, and transfers received from [my name] with the intention of building savings toward our life together in the UK where we hope to purchase a home and adopt children among other things.

- account 1
- account 2
- account 3

All of the accounts listed above are solely under my control and the funds within them can be accessed at any time.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


[wife's name]

Welcome!

If you are using savings for the financial requirement, do not provide evidence of her income or yours, it will just confuse the application.

I would take out this part.

, and transfers received from [my name] with the intention of building savings toward our life together in the UK where we hope to purchase a home and adopt children among other things.

It's not necessary and actually doesn't make sense, it looks like you are transferring money from you to you.

Quick question: are you applying for a spousal visa from the US, or are you switching from a different visa to an FLR(M) visa from inside the UK?

Your topic title says FLR, but your letter below mentions spousal visa... and it's not clear which one you are applying for.

- Spousal visas are only issued OUTSIDE the UK to people who wish to move to the UK to live with their UK spouse. They are valid for 33 months and cost £1,523 plus £1,872 IHS surcharge

- FLR(M) visas are only issued INSIDE the UK to people who live in the UK and are switching or extending their current visa. They are valid for 30 months and cost £1,033 plus £1,560 IHS surcharge.

We're also including information about my wife's employment among our supporting documents as evidence of the source of funds and her ability to support us in the future, including her work contract, letter from employer, and payslips. I'm wondering if I should also include these things for my own employment in the US mainly as evidence as to the source of funds. Thanks in advance for the help!

If you meet the financial requirements using Category D: Cash Savings only, DO NOT include ANY employment information, not your wife's UK employment and certainly not your US employment (if you are applying for a spousal visa from the US your income cannot be considered anyway).

It is not required, will not be considered and will only complicate the application.

The good thing about using cash savings is that you don't have to worry about including payslips, employer letters, contract or anything like that.

Also, your declaration of funds letter is too detailed - it literally just needs to state where the money came from (i.e. income and gifts):

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

I am writing to declare that the source of my cash savings is my employment income. My father also gifted me a total of £X over Y number of Christmases and New Years, and I am including a letter from him stating the that the money is a gift and will not be repaid. 

Yours Faithfully
[wife's name]

And note the highlighted red part - if you haven't already, you need to get a letter from your wife's father stating the amount of money he has gifted you, and also stating that it is a gift, not a loan, and that you do not need to repay it.

Thank you both so much, that's incredibly helpful! And my apologies, I'm still getting used to the jargon on this site/related to the visa. It's not an FLR, I am applying for my first spouse visa from within the US while my wife is already in the UK. I'll try and edit the thread title to correct that error.

Also, thank you for the shortened version of the letter, I will send it as you suggested!

After reading what you both said, I'm concerned now that we've gone overboard with how many supporting documents we are including, not just related to meeting the financial requirement but in general. We've been together for 9 years and married for 5, but all of our time together was spent in other countries where we worked as teachers at universities. Our schools usually provided housing and we've never had joint bank accounts, so we're concerned that we don't have as much strong evidence supporting our relationship and shared financial responsibilities as we need. We were hoping to use things like work visas, work permit cards, work contracts, funds transfers, etc as evidence that we maintained a home together in the same places over the years and shared funds with each other.

I'm going to post a copy here of our Sponsor Letter, including the list of what we were planning to use as supporting documents (I will remove things related to employment as suggested). Advice on editing the letter (which I suspect is too long) will be much appreciated!! Oh and just so no one gets confused by the pronouns in the letters, my wife and I are both women.



Sponsor letter:

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

I am writing confirm my sponsorship of [my name] for a spousal visa to join me in the UK. I have been a British citizen since birth.

I am currently employed as the x at y where I have worked since [date]. My current annual salary is # and it has been such since the beginning of my employment. I am employed full-time on a Fixed Term Contract which ends on [date]. I will be using my cash savings earned through this and previous employment in combination with cash savings earned by [my name] through employment as a x in the US to meet the financial requirement under Category D. I have included relevant supporting documents as evidence.

Once [my name] has received her visa we plan to live at the address shown above which is a 4 bedroom, 2 room home belonging to my mother, [mother's name]. I am including the Land Registry Certificate and a letter from my mother as evidence.

I first met [my name] through a mutual friend in February 2011 when we were both employed as English Language Teachers in [place], Japan. After becoming friends we began a relationship in August 2012. When our work contracts in Japan ended in March 2013, we moved to Santiago, Chile where we lived in a shared apartment for about two years while working as English teachers. Following that we also lived in shared apartments provided by our schools while working in South Korea from September 2015 until September 2016 and in China from June of 2017.

In 2015 we got engaged and in 2016 held a wedding ceremony in [place] in the US which was attended by my family, [my name]'s, and our friends. Later that year [my name] traveled to the UK on a fiance visa and we were legally married at the X Register Office on [date] with my mother and three brothers as witnesses. [my name] lived with me at the address shown above during her time in the UK. We have included work visas, work contracts, and other supporting documents as evidence of our life together overseas.

In February 2020 we were forced to leave our home in China due to the outbreak of Covid-19. We had been planning to move to the UK and building savings toward this goal while working overseas, so once the pandemic began we continued to work and save money in our own countries. During our separation we communicate via Facebook messenger, video chat, and email on a daily basis, and once it was safe to do so [my name] traveled to the UK on two occasions to visit me, in May and September of this year. During [my name]'s visits to the UK we shared travel costs as evidenced by transportation and accommodation receipts included in this application.

I am including the following documents to support the application:

- copy of x passport (old and new)
- copy of the biographic data page of x passport
- copy of my British passport (old and new) showing work visas, entry and exit stamps
- copy of x birth certificate
- copy of my British birth certificate
- my payslips since start of employment in June  *** will remove these three items***
- letter from employer verifying employment details
- my current work contract
- my bank statements from past six months
- x bank statements from past six months
- verification of deposit letter from x bank
- bank transfer documents showing sharing of funds between x and I
- marriage certificate
- letter from Bristol Register Office regarding legal marriage appointment
- receipts from US wedding ceremony held in x
- statements from x bank account and insurance listing me as her beneficiary
- two photos of us
- Facebook Messenger screenshots as evidence of regular communication
- Land Registry Certificate as proof of accommodation
- letter from my mother with details about accommodation
- work contracts, work visas, work permit cards, and letters addressed to us as proof of shared home overseas

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

 [wife's name]

Thank you both so much, that's incredibly helpful! And my apologies, I'm still getting used to the jargon on this site/related to the visa. It's not an FLR, I am applying for my first spouse visa from within the US while my wife is already in the UK. I'll try and edit the thread title to correct that error.

No worries - just wanted to clarify as the type of visa you are applying for will determine what advice we give you, as some of the documents required are different for a spousal visa vs. FLR(M).

After reading what you both said, I'm concerned now that we've gone overboard with how many supporting documents we are including, not just related to meeting the financial requirement but in general. We've been together for 9 years and married for 5, but all of our time together was spent in other countries where we worked as teachers at universities. Our schools usually provided housing and we've never had joint bank accounts, so we're concerned that we don't have as much strong evidence supporting our relationship and shared financial responsibilities as we need. We were hoping to use things like work visas, work permit cards, work contracts, funds transfers, etc as evidence that we maintained a home together in the same places over the years and shared funds with each other.

Okay, so for the relationship evidence, you need to send:
- marriage certificate
- a couple of photos of you together (i.e. one when you first met, one at the wedding, and one recent)
Evidence of living together
- 1 or 2 items of evidence of living together for each year you have lived together... for example, a rental agreement/utility bill, a bank statement from each of you showing the same address, your annual tax returns showing you both living at the same address
Evidence of regular communication during any time you have lived apart, such as:
- boarding passes/etickets flights to see each other
- any letters or cards you've mailed to each other
- call, message or email inbox logs showing you have been communicating regularly

The sponsor letter should just be about 4 or 5 paragraphs, each paragraph explaining how you meet each requirement:
- how your wife qualifies to be your sponsor
- how you meet the financial requirement
- where you will live together in the UK
- short history of your relationship (1 paragraph)

For example:

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

I am writing confirm my sponsorship of [my name] for a spousal visa to join me in the UK. I have been a British citizen since birth. I lived in the UK for X years until the age of  Y years, and then lived in [state where she lived after leaving the UK and what years].

I am meeting the financial requirement using Category D: Cash Savings. I have held £X amount in my bank account in full since Y date. The savings have been built up through employment income over the last A years, and include B amount of money gifted to me by my father. I am including my bank statements and a letter from my father confirming the gifted money.

Once [my name] has received her visa we plan to live at the following address [STATE THE FULL ADDRESS HERE] which is a 4 bedroom, 2 room home belonging to my mother, [mother's name]. There will be X number of people living in the property. I am including the Land Registry Certificate and a letter from my mother as evidence.

I first met [my name] February 2011 when we were both employed as English Language Teachers in [place], Japan. We began a relationship in August 2012 and we got engaged on [DATE] and legally married on [DATE] in [CITY, COUNTRY]. We moved to Santiago, Chile together in March 2013 as English teachers and lived in a shared apartment together until [DATE] We also lived in shared apartments provided by our schools while working in South Korea from September 2015 to September 2016 and in China from June of 2017 until February 2020, when we had to leave China due to Covid-19. I returned to the US and she returned to the UK. While living apart, we communicate daily via Facebook messenger, video chat, and email. [My name] traveled to the UK to visit me in May and September 2021. We now wish to settle in the UK together because [REASONS].

Yours Faithfully,

[NAME]

This is amazing, thank you!!!! I really appreciate the edited letter, it is much more concise and includes some important points that I can see I left out.

One additional question:

Evidence of living together
- 1 or 2 items of evidence of living together for each year you have lived together... for example, a rental agreement/utility bill, a bank statement from each of you showing the same address, your annual tax returns showing you both living at the same address

We don't really have any of those things. When working as university teachers, the school provided housing so we don't have a shared rental contract. However our work contracts do mention that housing will be provided for us. We also don't have much mail from that period, although I will take a look to see if I can find any, as unfortunately I think we discarded a lot of it. I do have two letters addressed to us at the same apartment in China to confirm that location at least.

Since we have so little of the typical evidence to prove our life together, do you think showing work visas, etc. as we planned will be acceptable? They do at least confirm that we were living in all of the same places at the same time over the years.

Regarding your documents, just going to arrange them into the various different upload sections for submission:

Applicant's Documents
- actual current US passport (must be mailed to New York for the 30-day visa vignette to be issued into it)
- scan of every page of current US passport
- scan of every page of all your previous US passports

Sponsor's Documents
- scan of biometrics photo page of sponsor's UK passport
- sponsor letter of support

Financial Documents
- my bank statements from past six months (make sure they cover every single day of the 6 months - you may need 7 months' worth)
- declaration of source of savings
- letter from father regarding gifted money

Accommodation
- Land Registry Certificate
- letter from my mother with details about accommodation and stating home will not be overcrowded.
- latest mortgage statement if she has a mortgage

Relationship Evidence
- marriage certificate
- two photos of us
- Facebook Messenger screenshots as evidence of regular communication
- I would also include ALL other forms of communication...
.... screenshots of video call logs
.... screenshots of email inbox showing list of emails
-  work contracts, work visas, work permit cards and letters addressed to us as proof of shared home overseas... I'm not sure how much weight the work contracts and visas will hold, because unless the contracts state the address that you were both living at, they don't actually prove you lived together. Ideally you want official mail from those shared addresses, like tax returns, utility bills, bank statements etc., but really, I think you'll just need to include anything that you have

Documents not required so you can take them out:
- copy of my British passport (old and new) showing work visas, entry and exit stamps
- copy of x birth certificate
- copy of my British birth certificate
- my payslips since start of employment in June  *** will remove these three items***
- letter from employer verifying employment details
- my current work contract
- letter from Bristol Register Office regarding legal marriage appointment
- receipts from US wedding ceremony held in x
- statements from x bank account and insurance listing me as her beneficiary
-... as mentioned above, you could include these, but I'm not sure how much weight they will hold as they only prove you were working in the same country, not that you lived in the same apartment

P.S. You got married at Bristol Registry Office? I'm from Bristol .

P.P.S. In the sponsor letter, I took out the part about the wedding ceremony in the US, because it was really confusing... it read as though you got legally married in the US, then applied for a fiance visa that you didn't qualify for, and then got legally married a second time in the UK... which you can't actually do, because you can't legally marry twice. The important date is the actual legal wedding date, so that's all you need to include.

We don't really have any of those things. When working as university teachers, the school provided housing so we don't have a shared rental contract. However our work contracts do mention that housing will be provided for us. We also don't have much mail from that period, although I will take a look to see if I can find any, as unfortunately I think we discarded a lot of it. I do have two letters addressed to us at the same apartment in China to confirm that location at least.

I've kind of addressed this in the document list I posted above, but essentially you'll want to include:
- any official documents you have showing where you lived, or any confirmation from your company of the address you were both living at... were you given any kind of paperwork from the company about the housing they provided?
- any other letters or documents you have addressed to you if you don't have much/anything official

Since we have so little of the typical evidence to prove our life together, do you think showing work visas, etc. as we planned will be acceptable? They do at least confirm that we were living in all of the same places at the same time over the years.

I don't think there's any harm in including the visas/work permits, but I'm not sure how much they will consider them, since they only prove you were in the same city/country and not necessarily that you were living together in the same apartment as a married couple.

Okay, I'll have to take another look through my paperwork and see if I can't find more of the type of evidence you're describing. It's especially challenging because we were often provided with separate apartments by the school and chose to live in one of them together, but as a same-sex couple we couldn't always be very open about it. Often only one of us would receive mail at our shared apartment while the other would have to go to the spare apartment to pick theirs up, so you can see how difficult it might be to find anything. But I really appreciate the advice! Thank you for all the help

Okay, I'll have to take another look through my paperwork and see if I can't find more of the type of evidence you're describing. It's especially challenging because we were often provided with separate apartments by the school and chose to live in one of them together, but as a same-sex couple we couldn't always be very open about it. Often only one of us would receive mail at our shared apartment while the other would have to go to the spare apartment to pick theirs up, so you can see how difficult it might be to find anything. But I really appreciate the advice! Thank you for all the help

Ah, okay - in order to provide proof of living together, it does need to be official… so if you weren’t actually renting the same place/paying the same bills etc., then for the purpose of the visa, you were not actually living together, so you can’t provide evidence that you were.

What I would do instead is:
- change your sponsor letter to say that you were provided separate apartments but spent much of your time unofficially living together in the same apartment

And then provide any evidence you have of spending time together in those countries, such as:
- letters addressed to each of your respectively provided apartments to show you were living in the same city as each other
- evidence of things like bus or train tickets travelling between the apartments or to places you went to together
- evidence of things you did together in person, like concert or event tickets, etc
- you could always include a photo of you in each city or apartment to show you were there together

There was someone else in a similar position a couple of years ago who was working in the same foreign city as their partner, but they each had their own apartments and didn’t officially live together… and they just provided as much evidence as they could that they were both living in the same city and would see each other regularly.
 


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I will do my best to see what official evidence I can dig up in case I missed something previously, but if I can't find anything then I will do as you suggested and show that we lived in the same cities and saw one another regularly. Sorry, I should have included more context from the start about that, since it was an unusual situation, but we were hoping our work visas etc would be enough on their own. Once again, thank you so much for all of your help!!

Sorry, one more quick question:

In the edited version of the sponsor letter you shared earlier, the list of documents was left out. Was that an intentional omission, or should an itemized list of supporting documents be included in the sponsor letter? I've seen it many other people's examples, so that's why I included it, but not sure if it's necessary/helpful.

I will do my best to see what official evidence I can dig up in case I missed something previously, but if I can't find anything then I will do as you suggested and show that we lived in the same cities and saw one another regularly.

Yeah, you can only provide what you have, and you can also include an explanation letter for your situation and why you were not able to officially live together.

Sorry, I should have included more context from the start about that, since it was an unusual situation, but we were hoping our work visas etc would be enough on their own. Once again, thank you so much for all of your help!!

No worries .

The thing is that for the spousal visa, the important part of the relationship evidence is that you show a subsisting, genuine relationship throughout the period you have been together/married… and a work visa on its own does not do that.

It only proves that you both had permission to work in a particular country… it does not prove that you were in love with your wife and living with her in a marital relationship while you were working there .


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So after going through all of my paperwork again, I was able to find evidence of our shared housing for most of the countries we lived in, except for one. It seems like an explanation of why we didn't openly live together and both receive mail at the same address there is needed. Just wondering now if that explanation should go in the sponsor's letter or in a separate letter.

Here is a rough draft explanation that could be added to sponsor's letter:



I first met [my name] February 2011 when we were both employed as English Language Teachers in [place], Japan. We began a relationship in August 2012 and we got engaged on [DATE] and legally married on [DATE] in [CITY, COUNTRY]. We moved to Santiago, Chile together in March 2013 as English teachers and lived in a shared apartment together until [DATE]. We also lived together in South Korea from September 2015 to September 2016 in an apartment provided by [wife]'s school but due to the fact that we faced discrimination as a same-sex couple, we could not be open about our living arrangement there and [my name] received mail at a separate apartment provided by her school. We have provided a photo of us in our home there as evidence. We lived in a shared apartment in China provided by the university from June of 2017 until February 2020, when we had to leave China due to Covid-19. I returned to the US and she returned to the UK. While living apart, we communicate daily via Facebook messenger, video chat, and email. [My name] traveled to the UK to visit me in May and September 2021. We now wish to settle in the UK together because we would like to live close to [wife]’s family and our friends in [place]. We are hoping to buy our own home and start a family in [place] in the near future..



Also going to ask this question again since I think it was missed yesterday:

In the edited version of the sponsor letter you shared earlier, the list of documents was left out. Was that an intentional omission, or should an itemized list of supporting documents be included in the sponsor letter? I've seen it many other people's examples, so that's why I included it, but not sure if it's necessary/helpful. (Sorry, hope this is not a dumb question  )

Thanks again for all of the help, I was honestly so lost before discovering this forum!!

So after going through all of my paperwork again, I was able to find evidence of our shared housing for most of the countries we lived in, except for one. It seems like an explanation of why we didn't openly live together and both receive mail at the same address there is needed. Just wondering now if that explanation should go in the sponsor's letter or in a separate letter.

Glad you managed to find some evidence .

I'd say it can be mentioned briefly in the sponsor letter (the explanation you have put looks good), but it can also be explained in a little more detail in a contents letter written by the applicant, as that is where you can put an explanation for anything unusual or missing with the documents included.

The applicant contents letter should be in the format of:
- visa type applied for
- date you wish the 30-day vignette to start (which is the Intended Travel Date you put on the application form)
- an explanation of anything unusual/missing from the documents
- an explanation of any previous refused visas or criminal convictions (if applicable)
- list of documents included with the application

Also going to ask this question again since I think it was missed yesterday:

In the edited version of the sponsor letter you shared earlier, the list of documents was left out. Was that an intentional omission, or should an itemized list of supporting documents be included in the sponsor letter? I've seen it many other people's examples, so that's why I included it, but not sure if it's necessary/helpful. (Sorry, hope this is not a dumb question  )

Sorry, didn't notice this yesterday.

Yes, it was a deliberate omission as there is no longer any requirement to list the documents included in the sponsor letter... it's been a few years since we advised that the documents were listed in it.

Instead, the documents can be listed in a contents letter written by the applicant.