UK family and partner-route visas are granted at around 93% for Thai applicants, with the UK-wide partner-route grant rate at about 92% in the year ending March 2026. After the £29,000 income rule arrived in April 2024, partner-visa volumes fell — grants dropped 17% — but the grant rate for those who applied stayed high. Full figures and sources below, compiled from UK Home Office statistics.
Compiled & reviewed by Sunaree Ko, Founder · Source: GOV.UK Home Office statistics
UK family and partner-route visas (spouse, fiancé(e), unmarried partner and dependants) are granted at around 93% for Thai applicants — an indicative figure, as Thailand is a small cohort on this route. UK-wide, the partner route was granted at roughly 92% in the year ending March 2026 (about 39,000 grants against roughly 42,000 decided applications). The headline trend is one of volume, not approval: after the £29,000 minimum income requirement arrived on 11 April 2024, partner-visa grants fell 17% to about 39,000, yet the grant rate for those who applied stayed high.
This is the headline table: the share of UK family and partner-route visa applications that were granted and refused, for Thai nationals and UK-wide, for the latest published year (ending March 2026).
| Measure | Grant rate | Refusal rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thai family / partner route | ~93% | ~7% | indicative — small cohort* |
| UK-wide partner route | ~92% | ~8% | ≈39,000 grants / ≈42,000 decided |
| Partner-visa grants, change | −17% | — | vs YE Mar 2025, after £29,000 rule |
| All UK family visas granted | ~62,000 | — | 17% fewer than YE Mar 2025 |
*The Thai family/partner grant rate (~93%) is indicative: Thailand is a small cohort on this route, so the figure is taken from the detailed nationality dataset and shown to the nearest whole percentage. The UK-wide partner-route rate (~92%), the 17% fall in partner grants and the ~62,000 family grants are from the Home Office year-ending-March-2026 release (published 21 May 2026). Always confirm the latest figures at GOV.UK.
Family and partner routes are a much smaller cohort than the visitor route for Thai nationals, but they are the route most exposed to the financial requirement. Here are the headline numbers for the year ending March 2026.
On 11 April 2024 the minimum income requirement for sponsoring a partner rose from £18,600 to £29,000. Across all nationalities, the effect was clear in the volume figures, not the grant rate:
For the rules behind these numbers, see our UK spouse visa guide and the £29,000 income requirement explained.
Thailand is a small cohort on the UK family route — far smaller than the Thai visitor route, which alone runs to more than 53,000 applications a year. On the partner route, Thai applicants track the high UK-wide grant rate closely, at an indicative ~93%. Thai-British couples are a long-established group, and well-evidenced applications — meeting £29,000 and showing a genuine, subsisting relationship — succeed in the large majority of cases. For the full route-by-route picture, see our UK visa statistics for Thai nationals, where family sits alongside visitor (89.2%), study (~99%) and Skilled Worker (~91%).
With around one in fourteen partner applications refused, the published, document-based reasons are consistent across nationalities — they are about the evidence, not the applicant personally:
These are general, published reasons — not an assessment of any individual application. Getting the financial evidence in the right format and the relationship evidence complete is the part applicants have most control over. If a visa has been refused, see our information page on reapplying after a refusal.
All figures on this page are compiled from the UK Home Office's official Immigration system statistics — the family and partner-route grants and outcomes data — for the year ending March 2026 (released 21 May 2026), with the income-rule context drawn from Parliament and the Migration Observatory. This data is published free under the Open Government Licence.
Primary sources — free under the Open Government Licence:
Last updated: June 2026. Next update: on the next quarterly Home Office release (year ending June 2026, due ~August 2026). The pound figures and rules quoted here should always be confirmed at GOV.UK before relying on them.
UK Visa From Thailand (2026) "Thai Spouse & Family Visa Statistics (UK)". https://ukvisafromthailand.com/en/thai-spouse-family-visa-statistics — data: UK Home Office, Immigration system statistics, year ending March 2026.
Last reviewed: June 2026. This page presents aggregate published statistics from GOV.UK for information only; it is not immigration advice and not a prediction of any individual application. Figures are grant/refusal shares and grant volumes for the year ending March 2026 (Home Office, released 21 May 2026), with income-rule context from the House of Commons Library and the Migration Observatory. Always confirm the latest data and any pound figures at GOV.UK.
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Sunaree founded UK Visa From Thailand and compiles and reviews the guides and data on this site. We are a document-preparation and certified-translation service — not a law firm and not IAA-registered — and every figure is sourced from GOV.UK. Read Sunaree's full bio →