Civil partnership between EU citizen residing in UK and American?

You're right about the visas, and they keep getting more expensive in the British government's drive to dissuade people from marrying British citizens just to more easily become British themselves. The civil partner visa lasts for 2 years, at which time you apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain provided that you are still together. Tuition fees are based on residence rather than nationality, so until you've been in the UK for 3 years you'd be liable for the higher overseas rate rather than the subsidised UK/EU rate. Your boyfriend is totally OK as it's residence in the EU that counts rather than just the UK. Rights to treatment under the NHS are also based on residence so you'd have them just from living in the UK. A UK civil partnership is, despite the name, exactly the same as marriage except that adultery is not a ground for divorce and the ceremony cannot be religious. The process for forming one is just the same as for civil marriage. Feel free to email if you have anything else to ask.

Hopefully these links below, (lots of reading to do), will help answer your question. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/governmentcitizensandrights/Yourrightsandresponsibilities/DG_10026937 http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/wedding/a/CivilPartners.htm Read this next one with great care, it explains a great deal about the money aspect of a relationship - very important if one partner should die (which is likely the case over many years of time together). http://www.civilpartnershipinfo.co.uk/ As for the rest, such as your rights of abode here in UK, cannot see a problem with that, because most Americans seem to get to stay in UK quite easily. Just go through the forms etc. These next links will help you contact Americans already established here in UK. http://www.uk-yankee.com/ http://www.americanexpats.co.uk/ This next link is a political issue and not anything to do with you personally. I include it just to show that some Americans are actually quite desperate to come to UK. But, like I say, it's political. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/25/americans-claim-asylum-britain And remember, anyone here in UK who knows the second verse of the UK National Anthem is deemed to be a foreigner.

I finished a batchelors as well, it was chicken soup. Don't take civil partnerships as something good. Its just a way for government bodies to screw more money out of its people. I'm tied down to my life partner, under the law were as good as married. I can't get the dole if i wanted it, no benefits at all not while she does the unspeakable and actually works for a living. Married or not while we live together as man and woman we're under the law in a civil partnership. I would hold off on the civil ceremony until its legal to get married. It's not fun being as good as married, i haven't got the money to get married anyway. I'm not carrying my wife over the threshold of a rented house. By the way nobody gives a crap if you're gay and in a same sex relationship. You argue the same, fall in and out of love the same as anyone else. But officially there is no help or leeway given once you're registered as an official couple.