According to the Home Office, eligible overseas family members of a British citizen or a resident whose visa applications are pending can opt for a priority service from 9 January 2023. It should be noted that the UK had temporarily suspended priority services for foreigners after announcing Ukraine visa schemes.
However, priority services are now being offered to visa applicants for an extra charge of £573. Plus, the authorities are contacting applicants through email to recommend this option. Moreover, individuals who opt for priority service will have to wait for 15 working days starting from the date of the fee receipt to have their applications processed.
It goes without saying that overseas applicants keen on seeing their family members in the UK will be pleased by this decision of the Home Office, even though many other applications will remain pending.
Moving on, priority and super priority services continue to be temporarily suspended for people who wish to submit a new family visa application from another country. Although it can vary, the standard processing time for such applications is 24 weeks. Regardless, people expect the standard processing time to be reduced to 12 weeks and the priority services to resume shortly.
