TheReal

My wife and I would like to move back to Northern Ireland. My wife is a UK citizen with a UK passport. I am a United States citizen with a US passport. We have been together for over 10 years and married for the last three. We visited family there this past month and we have decided that we want to move to Ireland permanently. My wife's children (my stepchildren) all live in Belfast and are all adults. In our home in the United States I am the breadwinner. My wife is a stay-at-home homemaker. I have a 401(k) which should cover the financial requirements for myself. My wife's passport is valid and current so I know that she could move back at any time however we are having a hard time wading through all of the requirements for the permanent return. I work in IT and will have no problem finding a job as I am overqualified for most positions that I have found posted. We are wondering what the appropriate path to take should be. Any pointers or advice would be greatly appreciated.

BritInParis

Your primary option would be to apply for a UK spouse visa.

Start here: https://www.gov.uk/join-family-in-uk
with reference to this: Spouse Immigration-UK : British Expat Wiki

Pay particular attention to the financial requirements which can be quite onerous.

Do you have any recent European-born ancestry - parents, grandparents or great-grandparents? If so it may entitle you to an EU/EEA passport which dispense with the need of obtaining a spouse visa if you intend to work.

SanDiegogirl

Your wife, as the British citizen needs to sponsor you for a spouse visa.

Read the following document carefully to see how you could qualify to fulfill the financial requirements.

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...ugust_2015.pdf

As you wife does not work it sounds as though you are going to have to qualify using savings/investments/non income route.

While you say you would have little problem getting a job in the UK, that is irrelevant as your future "maybe earnings" are not taken into consideration.

TheReal

Thank you for the responses. This is what I expected.

I looked into getting in through Portugal as my great grandparents were from there but I don't speak a word of Portugese!

In the end I think it's best to just dot my i's and cross my t's and go with the Spousal sponsorship route. It's certainly a big pain in the rear but I think it will all be worth it once we get to the other side.

Thanks again for the advice.

cheers

My advice is to go to Ireland where I think you would do better job wise and also not have to deal with the cumbersome British visa rigmarole.

Cheers