Pwede bang mag switch ang 10-year partner route to a 5 year partner route? The answer is potentially “Yes”. But there are things you need to understand.

If an applicant is granted leave to enter or remain under the “10-year route” they can switch into the “5-year route” to settlement once they meet the relevant requirements.

For example, Juan is a British citizen. He met Christy in the UK when Christy was a student.

Christy’s leave expired and he overstayed. Juan and Christy have been living together for over two years. Juan’s works and earns over the minimum income requirement of £18,600 per annum. However, Juan and Christy cannot submit an application within the rules, because Christy has no valid leave in the UK.

Due to difficulties in returning to her home country to apply for a visa, Christy decides to submit an in-country application for leave to remain as Juan’s unmarried partner.

Christy relies on exceptional circumstances and the application is successful. She is granted 30 months’ leave to remain and is allowed to work, although she cannot claim benefits. As Christy had to rely on exceptional circumstances, she will only be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain after 10 years.

However, a couple of months after receiving her leave to remain, Christy applies again for leave to remain as the partner of Juan. This time he meets all the relevant requirements of Appendix FM because Christy has leave to remain as a partner. Therefore she can switch from the 10-year route to the 5-year route to settlement.

Her application is made in person at a Premium Service Centre (at time of writing these were being rebranded to “UKVCAS service centres”), and is successful. Christy is granted leave to remain under the 5-year route to settlement, and therefore she will only have to extend her leave once before being eligible to apply for indefinite leave to remain.

Assuming instead that Christy does not bother to switch, she will have to apply for an extension of leave 30 months after the first grant. This application is granted under the 5-year route, and therefore Christy will have to wait a total of 7 ½ years before qualifying for indefinite leave to remain (2 ½ years spent on the 10-year route and 5 years from the grant of his extension of leave application).

-Source: Freemovement