Applying from outside the UK

Main applicants are eligible to bring family members to the UK as their student dependants if they:

• hold (or are applying for) a student visa in order to study a course at postgraduate research level or above for 9 months or more, that is at PhD level or classed as a Research based Higher Degree such as an MPhil (Master of Philosophy) or MScR (Masters by Research),
• Paragraph 6.2 (b) of the immigration rules confirms a "Research-based higher degree' means a postgraduate programme comprising a research component (including a requirement to produce original work) that is larger than any accompanying taught component when measured by student effort."
• government-sponsored students who are coming to the UK to follow a course of more than six months at postgraduate taught or postgraduate research level, MSc or PhD.

and they are related in one of the following ways:

• they are your husband or wife (known as your spouse)
• they are your partner (this can be same sex), meaning that you must have been living together in a relationship akin to marriage for at least two years
• they are your child under the age of 18 – in which case both parents must be coming to the UK unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Please read both the PBS Dependant policy guidance as published on the Home Office website, and the UKCISA guidance for dependants, before you make your visa application.