Bigamy or no Bigamy?

[nav8400]

Dear all,

Hope you are well.

I am currently on skilled worker visa and want to bring my wife and daughter over from Pakistan however there is an issue which I need to discuss. I got married to an English woman in 2018 and got my stay as FLRP(10 years route) while I was I married to her I got married to to another girl in Pakistan 2020, my first wife was aware of that. Sadly in 2025 I got divorced from my first wife. Now I want to apply dependent visa of wife and daughter, question is have I committed bigamy, bare in mind Pakistani law does allow you to have more than one wives. What are my options?

[secret.simon]

It may or may not be bigamy.

But the second marriage is not recognised in the UK at the very least for the purpose of immigration, because when you carried out the second marriage, even in a country that recognises it, you were not "free to marry" under UK law.

The traditional way around it is to sponsor your second wife to the UK under a fiancee visa and then remarry her again in the UK, after you have received the divorce decree absolute from the first marriage.

However, I am not sure that that is a route open to you, as I think (I am not sure) that a fiance visa requires you to have ILR or be a British citizen already. Wait for others to advise further.