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Guidance

Partners, divorce and dissolution: caseworker guidance

Immigration staff guidance on how to recognise a genuine and subsisting relationship and identify a valid divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership.

Updates to this page

From:
UK Visas and Immigration
Published:
2 August 2019
Last updated:
29 July 2025
Show all updates

  1. Updated the guidance to version 6.0.

  2. Added an accessible version.

  3. Updated guidance

  4. Guidance updated to reflect legal marriage age rising in England and Wales to 18.

  5. Updated the Divorce and Presumption of Death section to comply with the latest protocols.

  6. The guidance has been updated.

  7. First published.

Documents

Partners, divorce and dissolution (accessible)

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Partners, divorce and dissolution

PDF, 463 KB, 44 pages

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Details

UK Visas and Immigration guidance on how staff handle cases that involve a partner, to recognise a genuine and subsisting relationship, and identify a valid divorce from marriage or dissolution of a civil partnership.

This guidance sets out the evidential requirements and factors that decision-makers should consider when assessing whether a relationship between an applicant and their partner is genuine and subsisting, and whether the requirements of the Immigration Rules are met.

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