Sponsoring a relative's UK Standard Visitor visa

You are allowed to pay for the visit and to accommodate your relative. What decides the application is whether your documents are in it: a letter that says the right things, your statements, your payslips, and proof of your own status here.

What your letter has to contain

Your full name and address. Your immigration status in the UK and how long you have held it. Your relationship to the applicant and how long you have known each other. The exact dates they will stay. What you are paying for, as a figure or a list. A line confirming they will not have recourse to public funds.

What has to come with it

Your bank statements for the same period as theirs. Your payslips. Proof of your status: your passport, your residence card or your share code. Proof you live at the address you have given, such as a council tax bill or a tenancy agreement.

The mistake sponsors make

Writing a warm letter and enclosing nothing. The Entry Clearance Officer cannot weigh an undertaking they cannot verify, so a generous letter with no statements behind it adds nothing to the funds the applicant can show.

How this works here

You can open the case, pay for it, and add your own documents in a section of your own. Then you share the case link with your relative and they add theirs. One purchase covers the case whoever pays, and either of you can upload.

Start the case, then share it

You can open the case, pay for it and add your own documents, then send the link to your relative so they can add theirs. One purchase covers the case whoever pays.

Answer five questions and see which grounds look weak. Free, no email.

Why are you going?

The purpose has to be one the visa permits, and the rest of the application has to match it.

Who is paying for the trip?

Money that is not yours has to be evidenced by the person whose money it is.

What do you do at home?

This is the tie the officer weighs most heavily, and the one most often left unevidenced.

What is your travel history?

Travel you completed and returned from is the single most useful thing you can show.

Review, £29

We read your documents, check every ground, tell you exactly what is thin and what would fix it, and write the cover letter, the sponsor letter and the employer letter from the facts you gave. One re-run included within 30 days.