UK Dependent Visa UK Guide for Nigerian Families

Deciding to move to the UK from Nigeria for work or study is a massive, exciting step. But it almost always comes with one huge question: "Can my family come with me?" The answer, in many cases, is a resounding yes, thanks to the UK Dependent Visa. Think of it as the bridge that connects your new life in the UK with the people who matter most—your spouse, partner, or children.

Bringing Your Family to the UK from Nigeria

Planning a move from Nigeria to the UK is a huge undertaking, and it gets even more complex when your family is part of the equation. This guide is here to cut through the noise and confusion, explaining the UK Dependent Visa process in a way that makes sense for someone applying from Nigeria.

Let’s paint a picture. Maybe you’re a software developer from Lagos who's just landed a fantastic job in Manchester. Or perhaps you're a postgraduate student from Abuja, accepted into a world-class university in London. The dependent visa is what makes it possible for your family to live, and often work or study, right there with you.

Your Journey to Family Reunion

This visa isn't just about paperwork; it's the key to keeping your family together during one of life's biggest transitions. It means you don't have to face the impossible choice between your career or education and your family. You, as the main visa holder, are the 'anchor', and your family’s applications are linked directly to your own.

We’ll walk you through every stage, focusing on the real, practical steps you need to take from Nigeria. This includes:

• Understanding Who Qualifies: We'll break down exactly which family members the UK Home Office considers ‘dependants’.
• Meeting the Financial Rules: I'll explain the proof of funds requirements clearly, so you know exactly what's needed in Naira and pounds.
• Navigating the Application: We'll cover everything from filling out the online forms to what to expect at your biometric appointment in Lagos or Abuja.

Let's be upfront: UK immigration rules have been getting tighter. But don't let that discourage you. With the right information and careful preparation, getting through it is completely achievable. This guide gives you clear, actionable advice to help you confidently meet the requirements and bring your family to the UK. For a wider view, it's always a good idea to understand the different UK visa types available.

The goal is simple: to turn a complex process into a manageable journey. By understanding the rules and preparing your documents correctly, you can focus on the exciting prospect of starting your new life in the UK with your family by your side.

Once the visa applications are in motion, you can start the fun part—looking for a place to live. For bigger families, you might start exploring options like this 4-bed flat in Hackney to get a feel for what's out there. This guide is designed to give you the knowledge you need to make it all happen.

Who Qualifies as a Dependant?

The very first hurdle in bringing your family to the UK is figuring out if they actually qualify as dependants in the eyes of the Home Office. Before you even think about filling out forms or paying fees, you need to be certain that the UK’s definition of a dependant matches your family situation.

The rules are quite specific, but they’re not as complicated as they might seem. At its core, the UK government sees a dependant as either your partner or your child. Let’s break down exactly what that means for a family applying from Nigeria.

Defining Your Partner for the Visa

The word 'partner' is more flexible than you might think. UK immigration law acknowledges that families come in different forms, so it covers three main types of relationships.

1. Spouse or Civil Partner: This is the most straightforward. If you are legally married or in a civil partnership recognised in Nigeria, your partner is eligible. Your official marriage certificate from the registry is the key piece of evidence here.

2. Unmarried Partner: This is where the details really matter. If you’re in a serious, long-term relationship but aren't married, your partner can still join you. The golden rule is that you must prove you’ve been living together in a relationship that’s like a marriage for at least two years just before you apply.

You can't just say you've been together; you have to prove it with solid evidence. Think of it as building a file that tells the story of your shared life.

For Nigerian couples, this means gathering official documents that show you share a home and responsibilities. The Home Office isn't interested in how long you've been dating; they want to see clear proof that you've lived together.

Let’s take a real-world example. Imagine Ade, a Lagos-based software developer, gets a job offer and a Skilled Worker visa. He wants to bring his long-term girlfriend, Funke, with him. They aren’t married but have shared a flat in Lekki for the last three years. To prove their relationship, they would need to gather things like:

• A joint tenancy agreement for their apartment showing both their names.
• Utility bills (like EKEDC or LAWMA) addressed to both of them at the same address over the two-year period.
• Bank statements from a joint account showing shared financial responsibilities.
• Official letters from employers or doctors that confirm they live at the same address.

The more official proof you have, the stronger your application becomes. It's all about painting a clear and undeniable picture of your life together.

Understanding Who Counts as a Dependant Child

The rules for children are very clear-cut. For a child to qualify for a dependant visa, they must be under the age of 18 when the initial application is submitted.

This is a critical detail that trips up many families. If your child is 17 when you apply from Nigeria, they are eligible. But if they have their 18th birthday before the application goes in, they generally can no longer be included as your dependant—even if you still support them financially.

This infographic gives you a simple visual breakdown of the family hierarchy for a visa application.

As you can see, the main applicant is at the top, with their partner (married or unmarried) and any children under 18 branching off as eligible dependants.

Linking Dependant Eligibility to Your Visa Route

This is probably the most important part: your ability to bring family is completely tied to the type of UK visa you have. Not every visa route allows you to bring dependants, and recent rule changes have made this landscape much stricter.

For example, the Skilled Worker visa remains one of the most popular routes for Nigerian professionals, and it absolutely allows you to bring your qualifying partner and children. The Health and Care Worker visa also has provisions for dependants.

However, the situation for students has changed dramatically. As of early 2024, only international students enrolled in postgraduate research programmes (like a PhD) can bring dependants. If you're coming to the UK for a Bachelor’s degree or a standard taught Master’s, you can no longer bring your family with you on a dependant visa. This was a major policy shift designed to reduce overall immigration numbers.

To help you see this at a glance, here’s a quick guide to some of the visa routes commonly used by Nigerians and what they mean for your family.

Quick Guide to UK Visa Routes and Dependant Eligibility

This table provides a simple reference for some of the most common UK visa types for Nigerians, outlining whether you can bring your family.

Main Applicant's Visa Route	Can Spouse/Partner Join as a Dependant?	Can Children Under 18 Join as a Dependant?	Key Considerations for Nigerian Applicants
Skilled Worker Visa	Yes	Yes	This remains the most reliable work route for bringing your family with you to the UK.
Health and Care Worker Visa	Yes	Yes	While dependants are still allowed for nurses and doctors, care workers can no longer bring dependants as of March 2024.
Student Visa (PhD/Research)	Yes	Yes	Eligibility is now very narrow, restricted only to postgraduate students on research-based courses.
Student Visa (Taught Master's)	No	No	This is a significant recent change. Taught Master's students can no longer bring dependants.

This makes it clear just how vital it is to check the specific rules for your visa category on the official GOV.UK website before you begin. The immigration rules can and do change, and staying up-to-date is the best way to ensure your family’s application is successful.

Navigating the Financial Requirements

Let's be direct. This is often the part of the UK dependent visa application that causes the most sleepless nights. The ‘proof of funds’ or maintenance requirement is where the UK Home Office needs you to prove, in black and white, that you have enough money to support your family when they first arrive, without needing to lean on public funds.

For many Nigerians, this is the biggest hurdle. The figures can seem huge when converted to Naira, but once you break them down, the goal becomes much clearer.

Understanding the Maintenance Funds

For most work routes, like the Skilled Worker visa, you have to show a specific amount of money for each family member you're bringing. It's important to remember this is completely separate from the funds you need to show for yourself as the main applicant.

Here’s the breakdown of what you need to have saved for your dependants:

• For your partner: You'll need to show £285.
• For your first child: You need an additional £315.
• For each extra child: You'll need a further £200 for each one.

This money is to show you can cover your family's living costs for their first month in the UK while you all get settled.

The All-Important 28-Day Rule

Now, this rule is non-negotiable and catches a lot of people out. You can’t just have the money in your account on the day you apply.

You must hold the total required funds in your bank account for at least 28 consecutive days. The closing balance on your bank statement cannot be more than 31 days old on the date you submit your online application.

This means the money has to sit there, untouched, for that entire period. A sudden large deposit just before you apply will almost certainly raise a red flag. The Home Office needs to see that these are genuine savings, not a last-minute loan from a friend or family member.

Let’s walk through a practical example.

Case Study: The Adewale Family

• Main Applicant: Dr. Adewale, a healthcare worker from Ibadan moving to the UK on a Health and Care Worker visa.
• Dependants: His wife and their 7-year-old child.

Let’s calculate the total maintenance funds they need for the dependants:

1. For his wife: £285
2. For his child: £315
3. Total required for dependants: £285 + £315 = £600

At a typical exchange rate, £600 could easily be well over ₦1,000,000. The Adewale family must hold at least this amount in their Nigerian bank account every single day for 28 days straight before they can hit ‘submit’ on their application.

The Stricter Rules for Family Visas

It’s absolutely crucial to distinguish between dependants on work or study visas and those applying for a Family Visa (often called the partner or spouse route). The financial rules for Family Visas are much, much stricter and have recently become even tougher.

Previously, the UK sponsor needed to earn £18,600 per year. In April 2024, this was hiked up significantly to £29,000. And the plan is for this threshold to rise even further.

This change has had a real impact. For instance, recent data shows that after the UK government raised the minimum income requirement, partner visa applications fell by over 25%, making it much harder for many families to meet the new standards. You can discover more insights about these immigration statistics and their impact.

Meeting this higher income threshold requires a different kind of proof altogether. You’ll be asked to provide documents like:

• Payslips covering at least the last six months.
• Bank statements that clearly show the salary being paid into your account.
• A letter from your employer confirming your role, salary, and contract type.

If you are self-employed or have income from other sources like property rental, the evidence rules get even more complex. The focus here is on proving a stable and sufficient income, not just having a lump sum in savings. This shift has made careful financial planning more essential than ever for anyone on the family visa route.

Your Step-by-Step Application Guide from Nigeria

Right, so you’ve confirmed you're eligible and have your finances sorted. Now for the main event: the visa application itself. It can look like a mountain of paperwork from the outside, but if you break it down into simple, logical steps, it's far less daunting. Think of it as following a recipe – get the steps right, and the result will be what you hope for.

To make this real, let's follow a Nigerian family, the Okoros, from Abuja. Mr Okoro has just landed a great engineering job in Birmingham on a Skilled Worker visa. Now, it's time to get his wife and young daughter’s dependent visas sorted so they can all move together.

Step 1: Tackling the Online Application Form

Your first and only stop is the official GOV.UK website. Don't be tempted by other sites; this is where it all happens. You need to fill out a separate online application for each person – one for Mrs Okoro and another for their daughter.

The most crucial part here is linking everyone together. The form will ask for the main applicant's reference number, which could be a Unique Application Number (UAN) or a Global Web Form (GWF) number. This single number is what tells the Home Office, "we're a family, look at us together." Getting this number wrong is a classic mistake that can cause massive delays, so be meticulous.

A Quick Tip for Nigerian Applicants: Go over every single detail before you hit submit. A tiny typo in a name or a date of birth can create a world of hassle later. It’s worth spending an extra ten minutes checking everything to save yourself weeks of stress.

Step 2: Paying the Visa and Health Surcharge Fees

After you've triple-checked the forms, you'll land on the payment page. Here, you'll need to pay two non-negotiable fees for each dependant.

• The Visa Application Fee: The cost depends on the main visa holder's route and how long it's for. In the Okoros' case, with a 3-year Skilled Worker visa, the fee for each dependant is £719.

• The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS): This is the fee that grants your family access to the UK's National Health Service (NHS). It’s not optional. The current rate is £1,035 per year for adults and £776 per year for children under 18.

Let's do the maths for the Okoros. For Mrs Okoro's 3-year visa, the IHS comes to £1,035 x 3 = £3,105. For their daughter, it’s £776 x 3 = £2,328. You'll pay all these fees online in one go with a credit or debit card. Bear in mind the total in Naira will be significant, so make sure your bank card is cleared for large international payments.

Step 3: Booking Your Biometrics Appointment

Once your payment is confirmed, the system will hand you over to the website of TLScontact, the official partner for the Home Office in Nigeria. This is where you'll book an appointment to give your "biometrics" – basically, your fingerprints and a digital photo.

TLScontact has visa application centres in both Lagos (Victoria Island) and Abuja. Every single person applying needs their own appointment slot, and that includes babies and young children. The Okoros will need to book three separate appointments, one for each member of the family.

Step 4: Attending the Appointment and Submitting Your Documents

When the day comes, get to the centre a little early with your passports and the appointment confirmation printout. The actual biometrics part is quick and painless – a staff member will scan your fingerprints and take a digital photo.

You'll also need to submit all your supporting documents. You've got two main options for this:

1. Self-Upload: This is the best and cheapest way. You scan and upload all your documents to the TLScontact portal yourself before you go to the appointment.
2. Assisted Scanning: If you're not comfortable with the tech, you can pay an extra fee at the centre, and the staff will scan and upload everything for you.

For the Okoro family, this is the point where they upload their marriage certificate, their daughter’s birth certificate, their proof of funds, and their TB test results. Honestly, making sure every required document is present and correctly uploaded is probably the single most important part of this whole process. Once your biometrics are captured and your documents are in the system, your application is officially on its way to a decision-maker.

Gathering Your Essential Documents

Think of your paperwork as the evidence you're presenting in court. If a key piece of evidence is missing or doesn't look right, your entire case can fall apart. A single missing document is one of the most common reasons for a UK dependent visa refusal, so getting this part right isn't just important—it's everything.

To make sure you've got all your bases covered, we’ll break down the necessary documents into logical groups. This step-by-step approach helps you build a solid, convincing application that leaves no room for doubt.

Core Documents for Every Dependant

These are the non-negotiables. Whether you're applying for your partner or your child, every single applicant from Nigeria needs these two items.

• Valid International Passport: This might seem obvious, but it’s crucial. Your passport must be valid for the entire time you plan to be in the UK. No exceptions.
• Tuberculosis (TB) Test Certificate: This is a mandatory health requirement for anyone coming from Nigeria. You have to get this test done at a Home Office-approved clinic in Nigeria. Keep in mind the certificate is only valid for six months, so you'll need to time your test carefully with your application.

Documents for a Dependant Partner or Spouse

This is where you prove your relationship is the real deal. The Home Office needs to see undeniable proof that your connection is genuine and ongoing, not just a relationship on paper.

Your most critical document is your marriage certificate. If you're applying from Nigeria, this has to be the certified original from the official Marriage Registry. A certificate from a church or traditional ceremony often isn't enough on its own—the legally recognised document is what counts.

Proving a genuine and subsisting relationship goes far beyond a single certificate. You need to tell a story with your evidence. The visa officer needs to be completely convinced that your relationship is real and not just a means to get a visa.

So, how do you tell that story? You gather evidence that paints a picture of your shared life. Think of it like creating a relationship timeline with official papers and personal mementos. Great examples include:

• Photographs Together: A collection of photos showing your journey as a couple—from when you were dating, your traditional wedding, the registry, and just everyday life with family and friends.
• Communication Records: Screenshots of call logs from your mobile network or WhatsApp, along with chat histories that show you're in regular contact, which is especially vital if you've been living apart.
• Financial Ties: Proof of money transfers between you (using services like Western Union or simple bank transfers) or, even better, statements from a joint bank account if you have one.
• Shared Responsibilities: Documents like a tenancy agreement or utility bills with both of your names on them are powerful proof of a shared life.

Documents for Dependant Children

When applying for your children, the main objective is to clearly establish their relationship to you and the main visa holder.

The most important document here is their birth certificate. It must be the original certificate issued by the National Population Commission (NPC), clearly showing the names of both parents. Make sure the document is clean, legible, and officially stamped.

It's also worth noting that if only one parent is travelling with the child, you’ll need a signed letter of consent from the parent who is staying behind. This letter must clearly state they give full permission for the child to travel to and live in the UK. For a more detailed look at the general paperwork involved, have a look at our comprehensive guide on UK visa requirements for Nigerian citizens.

Documents from the Main Visa Holder

Since your family's application is directly linked to your visa, you need to provide documents that prove your status in the UK.

• Proof of Your Visa Status: This can be a copy of your Biometric Residence Permit (BRP), the visa vignette (the sticker in your passport), or the official visa approval letter you received.
• Financial Evidence: These are the same bank statements you used to show you have the required maintenance funds, clearly demonstrating the money has been in the account for at least 28 consecutive days. If your employer is covering your dependants' maintenance costs, you'll need an official letter from them stating this.

Your best strategy is to be meticulous. Create a separate folder for each family member and use this guide as a checklist. A complete, well-organised set of documents makes a powerful impression and goes a long way toward securing a positive outcome.

Understanding Recent UK Immigration Changes

If you're planning to bring your family to the UK from Nigeria, you've probably noticed that the ground is constantly shifting under your feet. It's not just you. The rules for UK dependent visas have seen some massive changes recently, and it’s vital to know exactly where things stand.

These aren't just minor tweaks. The UK government has made a clear strategic move to bring down net migration numbers. For Nigerian families, this means the path to relocating together has become narrower and requires a much more clued-up approach.

The New Reality for Students

One of the biggest shake-ups has been for international students. It used to be fairly common for Nigerians coming over for a Master's degree to bring their spouse and children along. That all changed at the start of 2024.

The UK has now slammed the door on dependants for most postgraduate students. The only exception is for those enrolled in postgraduate research programmes, like a PhD or a research-based Master's.

So, if your plan was to do a one-year taught MSc and have your family join you, that route is unfortunately no longer an option. This change was specifically designed to reduce the number of dependants coming in on student visas, forcing many to completely rethink their plans.

Tighter Rules for Health and Care Workers

The Health and Care Worker visa, once a popular route for many Nigerians, has also been hit with stricter rules. While skilled professionals like doctors and nurses can still bring their families, the door has been shut for care workers. As of March 2024, care workers and senior care workers are no longer permitted to bring dependants to the UK.

The impact was immediate and dramatic. After a significant peak, applications for dependant visas tied to the Health and Care route plummeted. The numbers tell a stark story: grants for dependant visas on sponsored study routes fell by a jaw-dropping 81% in the year following these new restrictions.

These updates show just how critical it is to check the very latest rules for your specific visa before you make any moves. For a more detailed look into these policy shifts, it's worth reading about the new UK immigration white paper and what every Nigerian should know.

Common Questions from Nigerian Applicants

Trying to figure out the UK dependent visa process from Nigeria can feel like putting together a puzzle. It's only natural to have a lot of questions. Let's walk through some of the most common ones to give you a clearer picture and help you plan your family's move.

Can My Dependant Partner Work in the UK?

This is a big one, and the answer is usually yes. For most of the popular visa routes, like the Skilled Worker visa, a dependant partner generally gets full permission to work. This means they can take on almost any job without many restrictions.

However, the real proof is in the pudding. When your partner arrives in the UK, they'll receive a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP). This card is the official document that spells out exactly what they can and can't do for work, so always check it carefully.

What Happens if the Main Visa Application Is Refused?

This is a crucial point to understand: a dependant’s visa is completely linked to the main applicant's. If the primary application gets refused, any dependent applications tied to it will automatically be refused as well.

Should this happen, you'll get an official refusal letter that explains exactly why the decision was made. This is precisely why it’s so important to make sure the main applicant's case is as strong and error-free as possible—the whole family's plan depends on it.

The refusal notice will also tell you what you can do next. It might suggest an administrative review or point out issues you need to fix before submitting a fresh application. Reading and understanding this letter is your first step to getting back on track.

How Long Does the Visa Process Take from Nigeria?

Officially, the standard processing time for a dependent visa UK application from Nigeria is about three weeks after you’ve given your biometrics. Think of this as a guideline, though, because timings can easily stretch out, especially during busy periods like summer holidays or the run-up to Christmas.

If you're in a hurry, UKVI does offer priority services for an extra fee. This can slash the waiting time down to around five working days. Before you book flights or make any solid plans, it's always a good idea to check the very latest processing times on the GOV.UK website.

Once the visa is sorted, thoughts often turn to settling in and securing your family's future. For that next stage of planning, you might find this ultimate guide to life insurance for parents in the UK to be a really useful resource.

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