EU citizen living in the UK wanting to marry a Zambian woman

Hello Ffaaa and welcome among us

I'm Loïc form the expat.com team and I'm glad to see you on the England forum !

I think you will find some very useful information in our Getting married in the United Kingdom article.

I hope this will help you and your (future) wife to settle in the UK

Have a lovely day.

Regards

Loïc
Expat.com Team

Thank you Loïc. 

I red most of the information in that link but it doesn't really give me a specific answer, or it may not be understanding it right.

Probably she needs a marriage visitor Visa to come and marry me in the UK, then get a family permit and then maybe apply to the EU settlement scheme (although she is not a EU citizen)

Or it could be better/ easier for me to go and get married in Zambia, then come back in England.

Hopefully someone that's done it can chime in.

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

You have a few options:

If you and your partner have what is regarded as a lasting relationship, then you don't need to be married; generally what this requires is evidence of lasting (minimum 2 years) living together.  You will need evidence of this (invoices in both names, bank accounts in both names etc).  Details are here (link).

The Marriage Visa is an option, but she will have to leave after 6 months, then re-apply for a family visa.  Link here.

None of the above is dependant on you being an EU citizen.

EU family reunification visa (link); this visa will no longer exist once the UK has finished negotiating its trade deal with the EU, so you need to get a move on.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

You have a few options:

If you and your partner have what is regarded as a lasting relationship, then you don't need to be married; generally what this requires is evidence of lasting (minimum 2 years) living together.  You will need evidence of this (invoices in both names, bank accounts in both names etc).  Details are here (link).

The Marriage Visa is an option, but she will have to leave after 6 months, then re-apply for a family visa.  Link here.

None of the above is dependant on you being an EU citizen.

EU family reunification visa (link); this visa will no longer exist once the UK has finished negotiating its trade deal with the EU, so you need to get a move on.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Thanks for the answer, those are useful links.
Assuming we do not have a "lasting relationship" she needs to get a marriage visitor Visa to come to the UK and marry me. Then go back to Zambia after 6 months or less and apply for the EU settlement scheme family permit.

That's from the Government's website:

"Apply for the EU Settlement Scheme family permit if you’re the close family member of an EEA or Swiss national and they have ‘settled’ or ‘pre-settled’ status under the EU Settlement Scheme."

I'm an EEA national and i have "pre settled" status.

That family permit would allow her to live in the UK for 6 months and after that she needs to apply for the EU settlement scheme to get pre settled status to be able to live here permanently.

Hopefully i understood correctly and things are rather straight forward and not too complicated.

Hi again,

The only further comment I have is that the EU settlement scheme you refer to will cease when the current EU/UK trade negotiations complete; this could be from at any time from the end of June 2020 (so the end of this month!!!) if there is no trade deal; or, if there is a trade deal, then from 31 Dec 2020.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

We need to hurry up.

That's also from the Government's website:

There will be no change to the rights and status of EU citizens currently living in the UK until 30 June 2021. You and your family can apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK.

Not sure if it applies to my situation. Hopefully we have enough time.

Ffaaa wrote:

We need to hurry up.

That's also from the Government's website:

There will be no change to the rights and status of EU citizens currently living in the UK until 30 June 2021. You and your family can apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK.

Not sure if it applies to my situation. Hopefully we have enough time.

I hadn't seen that part, thank you, something else learned.  I think it will apply to you; that said, I would advise you to sort this as soon as possible as all this is subject to change at the stroke of a politicians pen.

I just checked the new regulations and it is definitely in there as well; for your future reference, this link will take you to the new Immigration rules that come into effect on 1 Jan 2021.