Many students choose to bring their families with them when they study with us here at Swansea University. Swansea is a wonderful vibrant city, which also benefits from beautiful beaches and excellent public amenities.
Please make sure that you are actively engaging with us, and the information we have made available to you here, to ensure that we can support both you and our local community fully.
We have put together comprehensive family resources (available below) which will help you assess whether you can bring your family with you (if you are subject to immigration requirements), what you need to do to prepare and what you can expect whilst you are here. This includes an International Family Information Guide which you can download this via the picture link below.
Wherever possible, you should try and arrange accommodation before you leave your home country and also make sure that you are budgeting accurately for rental costs (it is standard that an accommodation contract will expect you to pay for several months upfront). If you cannot pre arrange your accommdation, you should think about coming to the UK before your family and bringing them over once you have accommodation/schooling in place. This can avoid both unnceccessary distress and significant financial outlay- as you will likely have to stay in temporary accommodation (e.g. a hotel) while looking for family suitable accommodation and this could take some time.
We have further information about short and longer term accommodation available in our UK Travel and Accommodation- An Interntional Student Guide, so please ensure you are reading that too.
If you are applying to come to the UK under the Student Route, you will need to confirm/evidence to the UKVI that you have living costs for a minimum of 9 months available to you (on top of your fees) before travel and in order to be granted a visa. You will need to sign a declaration confirming that these funds are specifically to support you and your family once you arrive in the UK. Livings costs needed to secure a UK Student Route visa are £9,207 for the main applicant plus £6,120 per dependant. For example, a family of 5 would need to confirm they have £33,687 upfront and which is specifically for initial UK living costs. You should expect that a significant part of these funds will go towards securing your accommodation and initial UK set up costs. Further information about UK Living Costs and Finances has been provided for you.
If you have read the guidance and you have dependants applying for immigration permission under the Student Route, our supplementary Leaflet on Applying for visas found in our Dependants- International Students section will help you prepare for that.
Please note: If you are bringing children and hope to enrol them in school it is important that you plan to have secured your accommodation and be in the UK at the beginning of the school year (by 1st September or 1st January) and that you have the correct visas for the whole family.
You can apply for your school place from overseas (as long as you have already secured your accommodation) and we urge all families to do this if they can. Please see our Applying for a School: International Students for information around that. Arriving in the UK on time prevents unneccessary upset to both your children and the staff and children within our local schools.
We look forward to welcoming our international families to Swansea very soon.
