31 July 2009

If you applied for a certificate of approval for marriage or civil partnership between 2005 and 2009, you may be eligible for the repayment of the fee you paid.

To be eligible, you need to show that paying the fee caused you real financial hardship at the time of payment.

You should apply using request form COAFR, which also contains more information about the qualifying criteria for a request. The request form can be downloaded from the right side of the Certificates of approval page at the UK Border Agency website, under the heading ‘Related documents’.

All requests for repayment should be made by 31 July 2010.