Planning a surprise visit to the UK for a non EEA national

[Flashbambi]

I (a British citizen) want to plan a surprise birthday party for my wife (an Iranian citizen living with me in England on a spouse visa). As part of the surprise, I want to arrange for my wife's sister (an Iranian citizen living in Iran) to be there.

I therefore need to arrange a visit visa for my wife's sister to visit us in the UK for the birthday surprise in early May, giving us about three months to get this sorted.

My main concern is the sponsorship. We can't put my wife as the sponsor as that will ruin the surprise, so we can either put myself as the sponsor or have no sponsor. If we put myself as the sponsor, I could explain in a letter the circumstances and reason why my wife isn't sponsoring her sister instead, but this may cause suspicion for the case worker. This will be the first time my wife's sister will be visiting the UK, so for the sake of future applications I don't want to jeopardise this.

The other option is to have no sponsor, but this might be even worse for the application, and she would need to show hotel bookings for her entire visit, and I am intending for her to stay with us. So this is an expensive an undesirable option.

Please offer me any advice or experience you have with surprise visits. I need to start the application soon to make sure she has it in time.

Thank you

[Wanderer]

Sponsorship matters little - it#s reasons to return that count.

UKVI is more concerned with visitors residing or attempting to remain from visit visas so this is the issue you need to address.