Three separate permissions, and they do not move together

If you have a spouse or children, winning a scholarship is only the first of three approvals you need. The second is whether the immigration rules of the country let a student in your situation bring dependants at all. The third is whether anyone will pay for them.

Those three answers are set by three different bodies, and they routinely disagree. A scholarship can be generous and the visa route still closed. A visa route can be open and the scholarship still pay nothing extra. Applicants get caught out because they assume that a scholarship large enough to live on is a scholarship that assumed a family.

Work through all three before you accept an offer, because the deadline to add a dependant to your application is often earlier than the deadline to accept the award.

The UK narrowed the door, and left a scholarship-shaped gap

The UK is the clearest example of a rule change that split scholarship holders from everyone else.

On the Student visa, a dependant means your husband, wife or civil partner, your unmarried partner, or your child under 18. To bring one, you must be either a government-sponsored student starting a course that lasts longer than six months, or a full-time student on a postgraduate course at RQF level 7 or above lasting nine months or longer. For postgraduate courses starting on or after 1 January 2024, that second route applies only to PhDs, doctorates and research-based higher degrees.

The practical effect is stark. If you are self-funding a one-year taught master’s, you cannot bring your family. If you hold a government scholarship and your course lasts longer than six months, you can. The scholarship is not a nice-to-have in that case, it is the entire basis of your family’s eligibility.

The money test is separate again. Each dependant needs maintenance funds of £845 a month for up to nine months for courses in London, or £680 a month for up to nine months outside London, on top of your own. Each dependant also pays a visa fee, listed at £558, plus the immigration health surcharge. Check the current figures on GOV.UK before you budget, since fees are revised regularly.

If the UK is your target, the wider funding and visa mechanics are worth reading alongside this.

Scholarship money rarely scales with your family

Two of the best known UK awards treat dependants in opposite ways, which tells you not to generalise from either.

Chevening states that it will not cover any costs associated with your dependants’ travel and that it is unable to offer financial or immigration support for them. It goes further and advises scholars against bringing dependants, citing UK living costs. Its travel provider may try to book family on the same flight, but if that fails the family buys their own tickets.

The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission does pay family allowances, under tight conditions. A spouse allowance is available to PhD scholars only, for the first nine months of the stay, only for a legally recognised marriage or civil partnership, and only if the spouse lives with the scholar for a continuous period of at least three months. It is not payable if the spouse has their own scholarship, holds UK or EU citizenship or permanent residence, or is working on a UK visa.

Its child allowance covers up to three children under 16, plus children aged 16 to 18 in full-time education. For PhD scholars that is open. For master’s and split-site scholars it applies only to single parents with sole responsibility, defined narrowly as the other parent being unknown or having indefinitely abandoned parental responsibility.

Read those clauses the way you would read any award’s fine print. A spouse allowance paid for nine months of a three-year PhD is real money and is also not a plan for three years.

Canada now sorts spouses by your programme

Canada changed its rules on 21 January 2025, and the change turns on what you are studying rather than on who you are.

A spouse or common-law partner can apply for a family open work permit only if you hold a valid study permit and are enrolled in a master’s programme of 16 months or longer, a doctoral programme, or a designated professional degree programme. The professional list named by the government includes medicine, law, dentistry, nursing, engineering, pharmacy, veterinary medicine and optometry, along with eligible pilot programmes in certain provinces.

Dependent children of international students are no longer eligible for a family open work permit. Family members already in Canada with an approved permit can renew if they apply under the same criteria as their current permit.

A 15-month master’s and a 16-month master’s now produce different outcomes for your partner’s ability to work. If your family’s budget depends on a second income, the length of the programme is a financial variable, not an academic detail.

In the United States, the letter of your visa decides everything

Two American student routes look similar and behave very differently for families.

On an F-1 student visa, your spouse and children hold F-2 status. Your designated school official issues a Form I-20 for each dependant. F-2 holders may not work and are not eligible for Social Security numbers. They may study at an SEVP-certified school only if the course is less than full-time, and their status lasts only as long as you maintain yours.

Many government-funded exchange scholarships, Fulbright among them, place students on a J-1 visa instead, and dependants on J-2. A J-2 holder can work, but only after obtaining an Employment Authorization Document from the Department of Homeland Security, and those earnings cannot be used to support the J-1 holder. J-2 status is not available for every exchange category, so confirm against your specific programme.

So the same person, doing the same master’s, may have a spouse who can work or a spouse who cannot, depending on which visa the funding attaches to. Ask your sponsor which visa category your award uses before you plan around a second income.

Germany, and the rule about when you married

Germany allows family reunification for students, with a condition that catches people who marry after they arrive.

The Federal Foreign Office states that reunification for students is usually only considered if the student holds a residence permit and the marriage existed at the time that permit was granted. The expected stay must be longer than a year, and you must be able to support yourself and your family without public funds. Your family applies for a family reunification visa at the German mission in their country, not on arrival.

Requirements vary between missions, so check the page of the specific consulate that will handle the application rather than a general summary.

What to do before you accept

Write down four answers for each country and scholarship you are considering.

  • Does the immigration route permit dependants for a student on your course type and length, and does your scholarship status change that answer?
  • Does the funder pay anything for dependants, and if so, for how many months and under what conditions?
  • Can your partner work, and does that require a separate permit or authorisation?
  • What extra funds must you evidence per dependant, and what fees and health charges apply per person?

Then ask the funder and the university in writing, and keep the replies. Conditions attached to family allowances are usually verified later, when you are already abroad and submitting the post-award paperwork, and a promise made in a phone call will not help you then.

Rules in this area have changed several times in recent years in the UK and Canada, and the changes have generally narrowed eligibility rather than widened it. Verify every figure and condition here against the official page on the date you apply.