The Standard Visitor visa looks like the simplest application in UK immigration — and is refused more casually than any other, on credibility grounds applicants never see coming. Connaught Law's solicitors prepare visitor applications that answer the caseworker's real questions before they're asked, and rebuild the cases refusals leave behind.
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How We Can Help
The Standard Visitor Visa
The Standard Visitor visa covers tourism, family visits, business activities, short study and private medical treatment — up to six months per visit, with permitted activities defined tightly and work prohibited. The rules are straightforward; the assessment isn't. Every application is judged on whether the caseworker believes you're a genuine visitor who will leave, and that judgment is made on paper, in minutes, from the evidence you filed.
Proving You'll Go Home
Refusals overwhelmingly cite the same doubts: insufficient ties to your home country, unclear finances, or a travel purpose that doesn't add up. Strong applications answer them with structure — employment and business commitments, family responsibilities, property, financial records that explain themselves, and an itinerary consistent with the stated purpose. This is the part applicants underestimate and the part we build.
Invitation Letters & UK Sponsors
Inviting family or friends to visit? A good invitation letter states the relationship, the visit's purpose and dates, accommodation, and who bears the costs — with the host's status and supporting documents attached. It supports the application; it can't substitute for the applicant's own ties and finances, which is the misunderstanding behind many family-visit refusals. We prepare host and applicant sides together, because caseworkers read them together.
Business & Other Visits
Business visitors — meetings, negotiations, conferences, intra-company activities — must stay inside the permitted activities line, and crossing into productive work has consequences for visitor and host business alike. We advise companies on what visiting staff can lawfully do, and when the honest answer is a sponsored work route instead. Medical treatment and academic visits carry their own extra requirements we prepare to.
Extensions & Long-Term Visit Visas
Visitors can extend only within tight limits — up to the six-month ceiling, or beyond it in defined cases such as ongoing private medical treatment — and repeated back-to-back visits invite scrutiny of whether someone is living in the UK by instalments. For regular travellers, long-term visit visas valid for multiple years of repeat visits are usually the better instrument, and we advise which fits your pattern.
Refusals
Visitor refusals carry no appeal or administrative review, so the route back is a rebuilt application that answers every stated doubt with evidence — or judicial review for the small number of genuinely unlawful decisions. Repeating the same application invites the same refusal and worsens the record. Our visa refusal service handles the rebuild.
How We Work
We treat a visitor application as an exercise in anticipating doubt: your circumstances reviewed against the common refusal reasons, the evidence assembled to answer each one, and the application presented so a caseworker with minutes can see the case for granting in the first read. For families inviting relatives, we prepare both ends — host documents and applicant file — as one coherent story.
Where there's refusal history, we read the previous decisions first: the rebuilt application has to move the record, not repeat it.
Why Connaught Law
01Built for the credibility testTies, finances and purpose evidenced the way caseworkers actually assess them.
02Both ends preparedApplicant file and UK host documents drafted together — one consistent, checkable story.
03Senior attention throughoutYour application is run by our experienced immigration team, not passed down — with direct access to the person handling it.
04Refusal-recovery specialistsPast refusals turned into footnotes — rebuilt applications that answer the record instead of fighting it.
Fee structures are set out on our fees page — fixed fees for visitor applications, agreed before we start.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long can I stay in the UK on a visitor visa?
Up to six months per visit for most purposes, with limited extension possibilities in defined cases such as private medical treatment. Frequent repeat visits are lawful but scrutinised — if your pattern looks like residence by instalments, expect questions, and consider whether a different route fits your life better.
What documents do I need for a UK visitor visa?
Evidence of purpose (itinerary, invitation), funds (bank statements that explain themselves), and — most importantly — ties home: employment, business, family, property. There's no fixed checklist, which is precisely the trap: the file must anticipate the caseworker's doubts about your particular circumstances, not copy a generic list.
How do I write an invitation letter for a UK visa?
State who you are and your immigration status, your relationship to the visitor, the purpose and dates of the visit, where they'll stay and who pays — and attach proof of status, accommodation and finances where you're covering costs. Keep it factual and consistent with the application; contradictions between host and applicant are a classic refusal trigger.
Can I appeal a visitor visa refusal?
No — visitor refusals carry no appeal or administrative review. The realistic options are a properly rebuilt reapplication addressing every stated reason, or judicial review where the decision is actually unlawful rather than merely disappointing. A rebuilt application done well is usually the faster, cheaper win.
Visit that has to go right?
Wedding, graduation, family reunion — some visits can't absorb a refusal. Tell us the circumstances and we'll build the application that gets the yes first time.
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