The spouse/partner visa route to ILR — what's actually different

If you've read our ILR step-by-step guide for the Skilled Worker route, most of the shape carries over — the 28-day window, the 180-day absence rule, the UKVCAS appointment. What's genuinely different on the partner route is the eligibility itself, and it's worth getting right because two of the four requirements below don't apply at all on a work route.

Last verified: 2026-07-04 against gov.uk/indefinite-leave-to-remain-family/partner-family-visa.

1. Five years, and only on this visa

You need "5 continuous years" living in the UK on your family visa as a partner. Time spent on a different visa route beforehand — including as a fiancé(e), before the marriage or civil partnership happened — doesn't count towards this. If your relationship or visa history is anything but a straight run of 5 years on the partner route, confirm your actual start date before you plan around it; this is the single easiest thing to get wrong on this route.

2. The relationship has to still be real, not just on paper

Unlike a work-route settlement, this application checks the relationship itself, not just time served. GOV.UK's requirements are that you:

are married, in a civil partnership, or in an equivalent relationship that's lasted at least 2 years,
have "lived together since you last renewed your visa," and
intend "to continue your relationship after you apply."

Gather evidence of cohabitation across the whole period, not just recent months — joint bills, tenancy agreements, correspondence at the same address. A gap in that evidence is a common reason these applications get extra scrutiny.

3. English and Life in the UK — both required, no exemption from earlier stages

This is the biggest practical difference from a work route: on the Skilled Worker route you don't re-prove English at ILR because it was already assessed. On the partner route, English is checked again at this stage. If you're 18–64 you need:

a recognised English qualification at B1 speaking and listening or above, and
a pass in the Life in the UK test (£50 — see our Family Immigration Cost Planner to add this to your total cost).

Book the English test and the Life in the UK test with enough runway before your 28-day window opens that a retake, if needed, doesn't push your application past your visa's expiry.

4. The financial requirement — and why the date of your first application matters

This is the requirement most likely to catch out someone who's been on the partner route for several years, because the threshold depends on when you first applied, not today's rules:

First applied before 11 April 2024: the combined household income threshold is £18,600 a year, plus £3,800 for your first child and £2,400 for each additional child, capped at £29,000 total — and this lower threshold keeps applying through to your ILR application, provided you've held continuous leave on the partner route since.
First applied on or after 11 April 2024: the threshold is a flat £29,000 a year, regardless of children.
Exception: if you or your partner receive a qualifying disability or carer's benefit, you're assessed against an "adequate maintenance" standard instead of the income figures above.

Don't assume the current £29,000 figure applies to you just because it's the headline number — check which threshold your own application history actually falls under before you calculate whether you meet it, and verify the current figures on GOV.UK since these thresholds are periodically reviewed.

Everything else works the same

The 28-day early application window, the 180-day rolling absence rule, the £3,226 fee (same figure as other ILR routes), the UKVCAS biometric appointment, and the "don't travel while your application is pending" rule all apply exactly as described in the ILR step-by-step guide — that guide is still the right one to read for the mechanics of applying itself.