A couple working side by side in a loft studio

Files that landed

Four Birmingham-prepared packs. Four different desks.

Names are changed. Destinations, timelines and the documents that nearly failed are not.

Spain · Valencia · 11 weeks

Maya, product designer, Manchester

Maya’s US employer was happy for her to work from Spain and said so in an email. The consulate wanted a letter on letterhead, with a company registration number, a statement that no Spanish entity existed, and three months of payslips matching the salary in the letter. The email was useless. We redrafted the letter, sat with the HR lead on a call, and lodged at the London consulate. Card issued in week eleven. The sticking point was not income. It was the letter.

Floor met at €3,100 / month PAYE · no dependants · Beckham overlay referred to a Madrid tax firm.

Portugal · Porto · 14 weeks

James and Priya, contractors, Solihull

Two UK limited companies, two sets of invoices, a joint mortgage that made the bank trail noisy. The D8 wants a clean three-month average above €3,680 each, plus savings. We split the statements, annotated every large transfer, and apostilled Companies House extracts. Priya’s first pack was sent back for a missing criminal-record apostille. Second lodgement succeeded. They flew in March.

Couple filing £2,250 · two ACRO certificates · two FCDO apostilles.

Thailand · Chiang Mai · 16 working days

Owen, motion designer, Digbeth

Owen had the 500,000 THB. He also had a £9,000 transfer from his father eight days before he rang us. That is parked money, and Thai desks read it as parked money. We waited out a further two statement cycles, documented the gift as a historic family transfer with a signed letter, and filed through the e-Visa channel with an ACRO certificate. Approved without an interview.

DTV · savings trail over 90 days · no monthly salary test.

UAE · Dubai · 19 working days

Leila, engineering manager, Edgbaston

A UK plc with a Dubai office wanted Leila in Marina for a year without putting her on a local contract. The virtual working programme fitted; the insurance certificate did not. The first broker policy excluded “work outside the country of issue”. We replaced it with a policy that named the UAE, matched the salary letter to USD, and lodged on the ICP portal. Visa in nineteen working days. The plc’s mobility team now sends us their next three.

Income well above the official floor · insurance wording was the entire file.

Your file will not look like these. That is the point.

Write with the destination and the month. We will tell you which of these problems you actually have.

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