Prerequisites for this step. Financial requirement met, English language requirement met, tuberculosis test passed or not required, suitable accommodation arranged, documentation gathered.
The majority of UK settlement visas are processed in 60 working days so your planned arrival in the UK date should probably be a minimum of two or three months after your application is submitted. See previous month UK visa processing times. You can pay for priority processing for an additional fee of approximately £551. UKVI aims to make a decision on priority applications within 30 working days from when you submit your biometric information.
Register an account with Visa4UK. Click on ‘Apply For Myself’ to start a new visa application. Follow the instructions on the website to complete the application. Once the application has been submitted you can not make any corrections or changes so check everything very thoroughly twice. A silly mistake here could lead to the visa being denied.
Print the application form. Affix photograph to the first page. Sign and date the second page and penultimate page.
You can then arrange your appointment to hand in your passport and give fingerprints for your biometric residence permit (BRP). You will then be guided through the immigration health surcharge (IHS) payment (just over £1,000). Then finally the visa payment (approx £1,464). The website will guide you through all these steps.
Print the Visa4UK appointment confirmation letter, this will detail the location, date and time of your appointment and what you need to take with you.
Some visa application centres are able to scan all your supporting documents for an extra charge. This will save the cost of sending a large heavy folder to the United Kingdom. If you wish to use this service you will need to print out the page separators here. Sort all your supporting evidence accordingly and take it with you to the visa application centre.
You will then need to attend the biometric appointment usually with VFS Global to hand over your passport and for them to take your fingerprints and photograph. Take your current passport, the appointment confirmation letter, your completed application form and your tuberculosis certificate. If you intend using the scanning service take all your supporting documents with you.
Next step Collating your supporting evidence