Supporting my husband's UK visa application

Question

I am a UK citizen, currently living abroad in Bangladesh and married to a Bangladeshi citizen.

My husband has previously applied for a UK visa to visit my family over Christmas, which was denied due to him having insufficient funds and queries over our marriage certificate (now solved).

He wants to apply again and we obviously want to avoid another refusal, so we are considering having my parents support his application by providing their financial details. Will it be possible for them to do this or is it better if I provide the support myself?

I'm reluctant to do this because I may not have sufficient funds in my UK account, but don't want it to seem odd that I'm not supporting his application myself. Any help would be greatly received!

Answer 1

It will be much easier if you can document that the two of you as a couple can collectively afford the visit.

Your question sounds vaguely like you think only funds you have "in your UK account" will count -- but if you have an account in your own name in Bangladesh that helps demonstrate a stable household economy, there's absolutely no reason why you should not provide that as documentation in his visa application. In fact, that's better than if you had some personal money squirreled away back in Britain, because this helps demonstrate ties to the local economy.

And no matter whether you do have enough money to pay for your trip together, you should totally document your entire household economy in the application, especially since you will be traveling together -- not doing so will look odd and inspire doubt about whether your marriage is genuine.

Trips that are supported by relatives who are not traveling themselves tend to raise suspicion in visa applications -- but a married couple pooling their resources to fund a pleasure trip together is completely ordinary.

Note that simple availability of funds is only one of the hurdles he has to clear -- he also needs to demonstrate ties to Bangladesh that will motivate him to return. Here you can help if you can document that you have a good job in Bangladesh that you'll want to return to (to dispel the hypothesis that you're planning to move back to the UK for good and support him there).