Hi,

With the ever tightening rules regarding spouse visas to the U.K, I was wondering if anybody had any year on year stats.

Example:

2004 - Affirmation of freedom to marry can not be issued at British Embassy - 50% down turn in marriages between Thai/British citizens

2010 - UK Language Testing For Spousal Immigrants - ??

Thoughts and comments wecomed.

The latest statistics are here http://www.ukvisas.g...tus/statistics/ there is a link to the archived statistics from this page. I personally find the current format quite difficult to speed read as there is just to much data there, I did note that the amount of Settlement Visas issued by the Bangkok post increased from 1,900 in 2001/2 to 2,970 in 2008/9. Don't forget that as well as Thai applications, the Bangkok post considers applications from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

I'm not sure that it's just a hardening of requirements that could lead to a reduction of settlement visas, I really don't think things are that arduous, there is also the economic factor. There are now probably less UK nationals visiting Thailand because it's more expensive, so maybe less people marrying and less requests for UK settlement. Against this however, due to the weakening GBP, some long term residents have decided to return to the UK with their spouses, this led to a short term blip.

I really think that there are far too many variables to make a scientific analysis on this forum.

Joe, I'm not sure what you mean by your comments that in 2004 the UK Embassy did not issue affirmations to marry, I didn't know they stopped this service, surly that would have led to a 100% reduction, unless they married in the UK.

Edited November 29, 201015 yr by theoldgit

Passing to an A1 level of English will have no bearing. Unless the applicant tends to use sign language to communicate with her/his BF/GF

The latest statistics are here http://www.ukvisas.g...tus/statistics/ there is a link to the archived statistics from this page. I personally find the current format quite difficult to speed read as there is just to much data there, I did note that the amount of Settlement Visas issued by the Bangkok post increased from 1,900 in 2001/2 to 2,970 in 2008/9. Don't forget that as well as Thai applications, the Bangkok post considers applications from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

I'm not sure that it's just a hardening of requirements that could lead to a reduction of settlement visas, I really don't think things are that arduous, there is also the economic factor. There are now probably less UK nationals visiting Thailand because it's more expensive, so maybe less people marrying and less requests for UK settlement. Against this however, due to the weakening GBP, some long term residents have decided to return to the UK with their spouses, this led to a short term blip.

I really think that there are far too many variables to make a scientific analysis on this forum.

Joe, I'm not sure what you mean by your comments that in 2004 the UK Embassy did not issue affirmations to marry, I didn't know they stopped this service, surly that would have led to a 100% reduction, unless they married in the UK.

Hi Oldgit,

Thanks for the link and comments, some good points.

In 2004 the British Embassy in Bangkok changed their policy on issuing Affirmations of Freedom to marry on demand( 2 day wait).

Instead the new policy required the British national to return to the U.K in order to obtain this document.

This policy would have prevented many shotgun/holiday romance marraiges i believe, hence the ball park calculation of 50%.

In 2004 the British Embassy in Bangkok changed their policy on issuing Affirmations of Freedom to marry on demand( 2 day wait).

Instead the new policy required the British national to return to the U.K in order to obtain this document.

This policy would have prevented many shotgun/holiday romance marraiges i believe, hence the ball park calculation of 50%.

I wasn't aware of that requirement in 2004, I assume it was short lived, it certainly wasn't in place when I did mine in 2007.