poorman

Firstly, I thank anyone who reads this and can offer their time and advice. Thank you.

Myself (UK citizen) and my wife (Turkish citizen) are currently applying for a family spouse visa.

My question is simple: do we meet the financial requirement with the earnings stated below? I am self-employed.

I arrived at this part of the application which states:

Those figures are:Obviously, only one of these (turnover) is above the limit. We have been rejoicing as it is the first year we have ever turned over an adequate amount to apply.

Please let us know if applying will get us rejected with these figures. I would like to avoid that.

Thank you for your help.

Pulaski

The number you need to support a family visa application is "taxable profit", that is what you have proved that you have left over after meeting business expenses, but before tax and NI, and is equivalent to "gross pay" if you were employed; i.e. tax and NI are then deducted to reach your net income after tax & NI.

I.e. you do not have the income to support a visa application for your wife.

SanDiegogirl

As per your figures above, your profit is 14,000 GBP (in layman's terms the money you can call income after all your business expenses - but before tax and NI)
That figure is way below the 18,500 GBP needed to qualify to sponsor a spouse.
Your application would be rejected.
You can top it up with savings .......

poorman

Thank you, sir. My taxable profit is £14,000 and therefore we do not meet the financial requirement.

We have failed to meet the requirement two years in a row. We will now have to wait a third year to try again.

What would you recommend I do from the following:

1. apply in spite of being under the financial requirement
2. secure a job in standard employment that meets the requirement and apply in six months time

Thank you for your help. You may have just saved us a few thousand pounds and plenty of heartbreak.

Pulaski

If you do "1" you will be rejected, because you haven't met the requirements. Full stop. The "requirements" are fixed, carved in stone, and not flexible or subject to negotiation.

You could either take employment at sufficient pay level to meet the requirements, or increase the profits from your business, by either taking on more work, charging higher prices/ fees, or some combination thereof.

poorman

Thank you. Then I am humbled for another year!

In the meantime, we can still visit family on a visitor visa while I get the money sorted. That is a huge consolation.

Forgive me for asking such a question, but there is always a chance that my wife may fall pregnant (and give birth) before we are able to move to the UK permanently. In the case that this happens, and the child is born in England, would that child be a British citizen at birth?

We are primarily moving back to England to start a family. It is obviously in the best interests of our children that they are “British”, seeing as we intend to move there as soon as we can, and for their quality of life.

Again, I apologise for the awkward question. But a clear answer would help a young man on his way.

Pulaski

"We" can still visit family? Are you not living in the UK already? Is your business in the UK and you're operating it from outside the UK? Surely your business would be a lot more profitable if you were living in the UK and focussed on running and growing it, not living (I assume) in Turkey, running it remotely.
If you're British "other than by descent" (typically meaning that you were either born in the UK to either at least one British parent, or naturalized as a British citizen), then your children will be British no matter where your wife gives birth - it could be UK, Turkey,Tuvalu, or Mars it makes no difference. There would be a difference if the child(ren) were born outside the UK and never lived in the UK (they wouldn't be able to pass on British citizenship - they'd have to live there for three years), but merely being your child(ren) is sufficient to make them British, which means they can get a British passport and are not part of the financial requirements we were discussing above, - that only applies to your wife.

poorman

That's right. I'm living in Turkey and running the business remotely. I'm a freelancer, so in a sense, I am the business. My location doesn't have an effect on my earnings. It's all online.

Of course, I'll take steps to grow the business this year. I'm several years in and profit grows a few thousand each year. With a decent effort, we'll be able to meet the requirement in a year's time.

Bear in mind we are still very young. Having a freelance business that makes £20k profit each year would be quite an achievement, and would set us up for a better life in the UK anyway. So perhaps it's a blessing in disguise to have to wait for another year.

Thank you, I didn't know that. I really appreciate you taking the time to help us. The wife says “thank you” as well.

I'll check back in a year's time to let you know how we get on.