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Step 3 – Collecting Your Supporting Documents
This, by a monumental mile, is the most important (and cumbersome) step in your process. The Home Office doesn’t provide clear directives around supporting documents anymore. It gives you very vague instructions on what it is that you need to prove to support your eligibility and leaves it to you to decide what documents you must submit. To help everybody out, here’s a usable checklist – please use this purely as a reference point. I’ve no affiliation with the UK Home Office and no endorsement or validation from them – I’m just sharing what worked for me, and in most circumstances, must work for you.
i. Personal Information:
*for employement – letter from employer detailing salary, length of employment, confirming leave of absence and whether it is paid or unpaid
*for studies – letter from education provider confirming enrolment & leave of absence
ii. Financial & Employment Information:
iii. Travel & Accommodation Information:
**if staying with a friend/relative – an invitation letter from them as well as a copy of their visa/letter from Home Office confirming their immigration status is very helpful
iv. Forms & Other Documents:
A lot of this sounds extremely straight-forward & obvious when put forth in this manner, but it’s amazing how many people end up ruining their chances by missing the obvious – always a brownie point for the organized lot here! The chief concern of the immigration office is to ensure you have no reasonable probability of staying back in the UK for good OR you aren’t in a position where you become a burden on the state and will seek recourse to public funds; hence as far as you can prove beyond reasonable doubt, that you’ve no intention to settle in the UK long term and have access to finances that will sustain you during the trip, you should be good enough. For more detailed information check here.
You can download this entire checklist in a pdf format here – Complete Checklist
Booking.com
Despite the Visa frustrations, your upcoming travels sound great! Can’t wait to hear more!
I thank my lucky stars I have a Canadian passport- I saved about 2 hours in the line at JFK because of that!
Enjoy your trip!
Hi Sanket, Is it necessary to subit documents related to scotland travel when u r applyin for UK visa? I have applied for UK visa, but going to scotland is still not sure.. what should I do…If I have written Scotland in my VISA application but I have not submitted any travel or hotel bills of scotland , then will it still get accepted?
Thanks
Aditya
Hi Aditya,
Thanks for stopping by. To be honest, the UK embassy doesn’t give clear instructions on what documents to submit. You don’t necessarily have to mention you are traveling to Scotland. Here’s what is necessary: you need to prove that if you are in the UK for 20 days, you have enough funds for your sustenance for 20 days. I’d say return flight tickets are an absolute must, because then they know you have a strong motivator to return. After that, you may or may not make confirmed accommodation bookings. The thing with this is – if you make and show accommodation bookings, then your bookings need to match up with the itinerary you are sharing. If not, then you can get away with not showing accommodation bookings but having access to enough funds to be able to book on the go. I’d recommend that you build a simple itinerary to attach with your application, and make fully-refundable bookings that match. Try using Booking.com – you will find many options that are 100% refundable. If you have other questions, feel free to email me.
Also, this article is from some time ago. Please be careful to review current policies on the UK immigration office website.