Plan your family’s move to the UK with advice built around the main applicant’s immigration route.
Joining a partner or parent involves more than proving a family relationship. Dependant eligibility, evidence and financial requirements vary according to the main applicant’s visa and immigration history. Knightsbridge helps you understand the applicable requirements and prepare applications that reflect your family’s circumstances.
About these routes
A dependant visa may allow an eligible partner or child to accompany or join someone holding qualifying UK immigration permission. Each family member needs their own application. Under routes such as Skilled Worker, dependant permission normally ends alongside the main applicant’s visa.
Where the person you are joining is British or settled, a family visa may be the appropriate route. We establish the correct starting point before recommending an application.
Eligibility Check
The first questions are:
- What visa does the main applicant hold or intend to obtain?
- Does that route permit dependants in their circumstances?
- Are you applying as a spouse, civil partner, unmarried partner or child?
- Can you provide suitable relationship evidence?
- Do you meet the applicable financial requirements?
- If already in the UK, can you switch from your current permission?
Unmarried partners need to meet the relationship requirements for the relevant route. Children’s age, existing permission, living arrangements and parental circumstances also need checking.
Understanding your situation
You may be applying together as a family, joining someone who has already relocated, or extending permission following a change in the main applicant’s circumstances.
We establish who is applying, where each person lives and when their current permission expires. We also consider your practical priorities, including schooling, travel and whether applications need to be coordinated around the main applicant’s decision.
How Knightsbridge Helps
Our agreed service can include:
- Confirming whether the main applicant’s route allows your application.
- Assessing relationship and child eligibility requirements.
- Reviewing immigration history and financial evidence.
- Providing separate, tailored document lists for each applicant.
- Preparing consistent applications and explaining them for your review.
- Supporting submission and relevant follow-up within the agreed engagement.
We explain how the applications relate to each other, which information must be consistent and what evidence each family member needs. This helps you prepare a coordinated family application without assuming that one person’s approval covers everyone.
Addressing Challenges
Dependant eligibility is not uniform across work and study routes. Care worker and certain medium skilled occupations have restrictions, with specific transitional provisions and exceptions.
For many new Student applications, dependants are limited to qualifying government-sponsored students or students undertaking eligible postgraduate research courses. The Graduate route generally permits existing Student dependants to continue, with provisions for qualifying children born in the UK.
We check the rule that applies to your family before asking you to gather a full evidence bundle.
Timescales and Costs
Application fees and processing times depend on the main applicant’s route, where you apply and the permission requested. Each applicant has a separate application fee. We explain the relevant government charges before submission.
The Immigration Health Surcharge may also apply. Eligible Health and Care Worker dependants are exempt. Maintenance requirements differ between routes, so one family’s required funds should not be used as a guide for another.
We confirm our professional fee, scope and any applicable VAT in writing. Appointment, translation and optional priority costs are identified separately where relevant.
Situations requiring closer analysis
Tell us about children applying with only one parent, previous refusals, an unmarried relationship with limited shared documentation, or different visa expiry dates within the family.
If the main applicant is changing route, obtaining settlement or becoming British, we review the effect on your next application. Planning that transition early helps you understand the available options before existing permission expires.
Your journey with Knightsbridge
We begin by understanding your family’s circumstances and the immigration position of the person you are joining. We establish who needs to apply, where each family member is living and which requirements need to be assessed.
We then agree a plan around your family’s deadlines and whether you are applying together or at different times. Each applicant receives a tailored document list, with an explanation of the relationship, financial and other evidence relevant to their application.
As the documents come together, we review them and identify anything that needs clarification. We prepare the applications carefully, checking that shared information is consistent while addressing each family member’s circumstances.
Before submission, we take you through the applications so you can check the details and ask questions. We then guide you through submission and identity checks, keeping you informed of updates and handling further requests covered by our agreed service.
When decisions arrive, we explain the outcomes and any next steps within the agreed scope, including permission dates and points to consider when planning future family applications.
Ready to have your case assessed?
Use our Free Case Review to outline your family’s circumstances and the main applicant’s visa. This initial enquiry helps identify whether we can assist and which paid service is appropriate. Detailed advice and document review are separately agreed.
