ST Staff Migrant visa > LT Staff Partner > General Visa

[luckyborg]

Hi All,

My Case - Tier 2 ICT Short Term Staff Migrant visa > Tier 2 ICT Long Term Staff Partner visa > Tier 2 (General) visa:

In July -15 my wife came to UK on Tier 2 ICT Short Term Staff Migrant visa. The visa duration was July-15 to Jun-16. In Feb-16, she went back to India. From there, in Mar-16, she got transferred to my dependent visa i.e. Tier 2 ICT Long Term Staff Partner visa and travelled back to UK. She started working as a permanent staff in Jul-16 and now her employer is offering her a Tier 2 (General) visa.

My Question –

I read somewhere that ICT Short Term Visa holders will have to go back to India, serve cooling period and then they can apply for General VISA.

In our case, will the ICT Short Term Cooling Period be still applicable? My assumption is when she went back to India and transferred to my ICT Long Term visa, her Short Term visa got expired/terminated and now the cooling period is not applicable to her, so she can easily transferred to Tier 2 (General) visa in Nov-16.

Please help me with the answer.

Thank you in advance.

[gag285]

The cool-off period for your wife from her short term Tier 2 leave will expire in Feb 2017 counting 1 year from her leaving the UK whilst on Tier 2 leave i.e. Feb 2016 . She will not be able to apply in any Tier 2 category as the main applicant until then.

Coming to the case of switching to Tier 2 General, you would have read already about the RLMT process and its genuineness in the case of employees already working for sponsors under a different leave.